The last few months have seen one thing sweeping across the island’s politics – austerity. The governments north and south are shifting the consequences of the greedy bankers to ordinary working class people, with young people being particularly hard hit. Youth unemployment is at an all-time high and very expensive university degrees are becoming worthless.
The announcement by the Tory/Lib Dem government that tuition fees would increase threefold, was what prompted me and dozens of other young people in the North to join in organising the struggle against the draconian cuts. How should we be made to pay triple the amount for a degree that doesn’t even guarantee us a job?
This led me to join with the Socialist Party in organising young people in the fight against making us pay for the crisis of the banks. The Socialist Party has intervened in half a dozen demonstrations over education cuts, bringing young people from both sides of the community together to fight the repulsive cuts the parties in the North are voting through. I joined the Socialist Party as they are committed to the issue of fighting austerity and getting a fair deal for ordinary working people, not the mega-rich or political elite.
