ONE of the biggest protests outside of Dublin against education cuts announced in last month’s Budget was held in the city at the weekend when up to 10,000 took to the streets of Galway to send a clear message to the Government that it needed to row back on the planned cuts.

The organisers of the protest march, teaching union the INTO, said that teachers and parents from Galway, Clare, Roscommon, Mayo and Tipperary took part in the rally through the city’s streets, and they estimate that between 8,000 and 10,000 braved the atrocious weather conditions to voice their anger over the planned cutbacks.

“Parents and teachers were at first incredulous, and are now angry, that despite the fact that the harm that the cuts will cause has been well chronicled and explained, the Government has not yet agreed to reverse these misguided cuts,” one of the march organisers told the Sentinel.

The protest started small, with some parents being accompanied by their children at the start point in Eyre Square, but the crowds grew bigger and bigger before heading down Eglinton Street and across the Salmon Weir Bridge to the speakers’ platform in the carpark behind the Cathedral – organisers suggest it took 30 minutes for the crowd to cross the bridge.

One of the first speakers was Sr Geraldine Costello of the Catholic Primary School Managers’ Association, representing all the Primary School Management bodies.

“Management have the same responsibility to the children no matter what the funding is. I foresee...