Students at Technological Universities across the country will stage a walkout this afternoon.
Organised by Students’ Unions, the protest is in response to what they call inadequate funding in Budget 2026.
They are calling for fairness, equality, and parity of funding within the TU sector.
Lucy Bosch, Welfare Officer at SETU Waterford, says; “Time and time again the Budget has neglected TUs, they don’t have a framework to borrow money from Government so they can’t provide purpose-built accommodation, post-graduates are getting less of a stipend than post-grads that are attending a university that isn’t a TU as well as there’s no professorships at technological universities, it’s only lecturing”.
She adds; “We’re also looking for increased funding for Irish median classes so it won’t all be taught in English and if you would like to be taught and get your degree in Irish you would get that opportunity, looking like the mergers for all of these ITs to become a TU has just been a cost-cutting measure because rather have one TU where your funding is less than if you had five ITs around the country”.
KCLR News has contacted SETU for comment.
