A group of approximately 80 students gathered outside the Tierney Building where a meeting of the University Management Team was taking place. Students are protesting the proposed 12% rent increase over the next three years.

By Gavin Tracey | Feb 18 2020

Led by the Students’ Union sabbatical team, and the Fix Our Education group and UCD Anti-Casualisation, they delivered a petition with some 2000 signatures to the UMT meeting. Only three representatives of the student body were allowed into the room to deliver the protest and to make a statement to the board. 

Joanna Siewierska, SU President, speaking to The University Observer said that the protest was a success “We’re very happy with the turnout at the rally”. She added that “We could hear the rally from inside the boardroom, and that was really the point of today, so I do consider it a great success.” She added “We were allowed three individuals and no devices so we walked in, the room was very calm, we delivered our statement, there were no questions asked, we got a brief response from the president of the university acknowledging our presence."

"On our way out we said that we do expect a formal acknowledgement and response to this action and we are going to let hang on and let them do that. We sent our initial email with demands around the housing increase, the rent increases, over a week ago with no response so to be honest a form of response would be welcomed at this point in time but we are looking for our demands to be met. If they are not we will be escalating actions.” 

Also delivered to UMT was a petition calling for better working conditions of postgraduate and PhD students, led by UCD Anti-Casualisation.