Layabout students too busy smoking pot to bother voting?

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Students – they’re an awful shower of shysters.  Good-for-‘nathin’ wasters. Pot-Noodle-eating, Dutch-Gold-drinking scroungers. They’re only in college for the grants. And the sex. And the drinking. Sure what else would they be doing?

Lazy so-and-sos. Smoking pot. And running riot on Rag Week.

If there was study in bed they’d sleep on the floor. Smelly, layabouts the lot of them. Work? They wouldn’t know work if it jumped up and bit them in the backside.

Vote? The only votes they cast are for Scotty F**ing T on Celebrity Big Brother. And most didn’t even bother to do that – they’d no credit. Cheapskates.

‘Tis better off they can’t be bothered voting. More sway for the rest of us.

Students couldn’t be trusted anyway. Sure the lot of them are Commies. Always looking for something for nothing . . . and another thing . . .

Now, dear students, that we have your attention, some advice.

Bottle the rage you feel after reading the insults and get down to a polling booth and use it constructively: by voting.

Because we know these generalisations about students no longer hold true.

The marriage equality referendum proved that young people – and in particular students – are engaged in politics. They made a difference last May. They came home to vote from all over the country and the World to have their say. People power prevailed. Students’ effected change.

Nobody is flying home for this General Election. But the very least the ones who live here can do is get off their arse today and get to the polling stations. Make your vote count for the countless emigrants who can’t.

Get out and vote to give hope to the Diaspora abroad that someday they can return home to a better Ireland. It’ll only take a few minutes . . . but voting will have a lasting impact. Even if you spoil your vote, the democratic act will be worth it.

The Students Union at NUIG signed up 6,500 new voters in the 2014/2015 college year; and some 2,450 since September. That figure was 4,500 in GMIT last year and a further 950 were registered to vote since September. That’s 14,400 votes – nearly two quotas. So there are enough Galway students to determine a seat. Remember, just 17 votes separated the last two candidates after a marathon count in Galway West in 2011.

So, please students get to the polls and set an example for the rest of us . . . like you did in the referendum.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.