UCD staff and students to hold St Valentine’s Day protest highlighting number of concerns

University College Dublin (UCD) students and staff will be staging a protest next Monday, February 14, in order to highlight a number “core” issues they say need to be addressed by management.

Following discussions over the last number of weeks, the UCD Student’s Union says it has also gained the support of the trade unions that represent staff on campus such as SIPTU, IFUT and UNITE.

In a statement, UCDSU says it is asking students and staff to come along to demand urgent action from management on “sky high rents in on-campus student accommodation; protection of vital student support services; the ongoing exploitation of postgraduate workers; and the prevailing of corporate interests over staff and students.”

Speaking at the launch of the demonstration, UCDSU President Ruairí Power said: “As campus life hopefully starts to move beyond the pandemic, this is a chance to set a vision for the kind of relationship we want to have with UCD now and for the students of the future.

“We will be calling upon management to reciprocate the love that students and staff feel for their university, by setting out plans to address concerns that have consistently been raised over the last number of years.”

The UCD SIPTU Section Committee said that it “extends support to the UCDSU Valentine’s Day Protest, and encourages UCD Management to engage with the demands of the SU.”

Miriam Hamilton, Deputy General Secretary of Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) said that the union “condemns all employment practices which exploit precarious and casual workers and believe the UCDSU protest is a welcome focus on these important issues.”