The Union of Students in Ireland's (USI) latest efforts to withdraw
from their mandated demand of calling for free third level education
has fallen into farce. The union's holding of a little publicised
online poll to decide its policies should have been contested in the
first place. It has been revealed today that former students as well
as current ones were eligible to vote, some current students were
ineligible to vote and that ordinary users could easily gain access to
administrator pages within the website. Therefore, we would like to
express our believe that the USI's online vote is insecure and
invalid.

Socialist Worker had called for students to vote for the current
demand of “100% Exchequer Funding” which would assure a level of equal
access to college far greater than any other form of education
funding. Any withdrawal from this position would be the equivalent of
a trade union arguing for wage cuts as a starting point of negotiation
with employers. We believe that this is the position of the vast
majority of students that are alienated by the current leadership of
the USI. If the organisation was honest about receiving a mandate
from the student population, it would hold a vote during the college
year after widespread publicity and debate.

This continued turn to the right by the USI is just a symptom of the
unaccountability of the executive towards its members. Socialist
Worker reiterates our demand that the president of USI be directly
elected by the membership of the union in order for the USI executive
to more accurately reflect the views of ordinary students. A
combination of a reclaiming of our union and a move towards to kind of
unified mass student action as seen in Canada recently can make the
demand for free third level education a reality.