The Young Greens - Óige Ghlas is Ireland fastest growing youth party, founded in 2002 to fight for a green planet and a better quality of life. We are active on a local, national and international level campaigning on the issues that matter to us.

Young Greens at our Annual Convention 2009

The Issues

Third Level Fees
The Young Greens played a huge role in stopping the reintroduction of third level fees. We pushed the Green Party to secure a commitment that there would no introduction of a student "contribution" in the renewed programme for government.

We argued that the introduction of student loans would have cost the government hundreds of millions to implement, just to keep services at the same poor level. At a time when we are borrowing €400m per week, now is not the time to implement a flawed scheme. Secondly, neither the introduction of student loans or fees would have made universities better off. It would merely have changed who pays for third level education. There would be no increase in funding. Lastly and most importantly, research by the OECD and ESRI shows that students from lower socio-economic groups are debt adverse. The introduction of student loans would have introduced a further barrier to participation in higher education at a time when we need to build a knowledge economy.

Marriage Equality
The Young Greens have always supported the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to full marriage equality. While we support the Civil Partnership Bill as a step in the right direction, we campaign for an end to discrimination based on the sexuality of a person.

You can get involved in the Young Greens by going to http://younggreens.ie/join