In the last week, journalists from both the Sunday Tribune and RTE have repeated the trite statement that youth radicalism is dead.

Former so-called radicals like Pat Rabbitte were trotted out to lament the death of youth and student activism! Even supposedly left-wing students' union leaders like Fergal Doran of UCD declared that "We have tried to get students to protest and they just don't."

What a load of crap! Over the past four years, we have seen the first school student strikes and walkouts in decades, during the teachers' strike and then again in protest against the war in Iraq. Young people have been at the forefront of all of the protests of millions of people worldwide against the war and occupation of Iraq.

Third level students managed to push back the government's plans for re-introduction of full fees by protesting in their thousands as well as organising blockades, occupations and lecture boycotts. Even in the battle against the bin tax, young people were to the fore. David Murphy, a 19 year old student, spent three weeks in Mountjoy for protesting against the double tax!

As for the Students' Unions leaders - is it any wonder they are unable to mobilise their membership for protest? The leader of the USI is a right-wing Tory. These mis-leaders have no faith in the power of students and are therefore unable to outline a bold strategy for victory on any issue, which would be able to convince students of the necessity of taking action.

It is no coincidence that every clip of recent protests in the "News 2" piece featured Socialist Youth prominently. Because we know that young people do have power, we are able to make relevant arguments about why they should take action on important issues and mobilise people for protest.

The tsunami that took the lives of over 250,000 people many of whom died needlessly because there was no early warning system, and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed the brutal nature of international capitalism.

Capitalism and its political representatives place the pursuit of profit and wealth above everything including the lives of billions around the world. The relentless pursuit of profit at all costs has brought our planet to the verge of its greatest ever mass extinction. Only this time it is a human made disaster that is destroying life on earth. Humanity literally has no future under capitalism.

Yet the world doesn't have to be this way. Working class and young people can build a socialist world in which the resources and wealth of our planet can be used for the benefit of all and to protect our environment.

This is the message that members of Socialist Youth have been bringing on to the streets of Dublin. We have been organising information stalls aimed at getting the ideas of socialism out to young people. We have had a brilliant response. On one stall 12 young people expressed an interest in joining Socialist Youth within the space of an hour.

Socialist Youth believes that socialism represents the only alternative to capitalism. There is no half way house between the two. Capitalism cannot be tamed or regulated for the benefit of working class people. It has to be overthrown and replaced with a socialist society run for the needs of people not the profits of a tiny elite.

We urge all young people who are sick of the rule of the multinational parasites and warmongers that dominate our world to join Socialist Youth in the struggle for a socialist future today.

"Basically, I was already a socialist before I joined. I got socialist beliefs from my father when I was young.

"However, most of my socialist ideas had been overshadowed by republicanism. I was in Sinn Fein when I was younger, but I got disillusioned with the rightward road they were taking and left, as did most of the members of my Cumann. After that, I wasn't involved in politics for a few years.

"My girlfriend persuaded me to go to the meeting in UCC of the Socialist Party on Societies' Day. I originally thought it was some sort of social-democratic party. But I was really impressed by the whole ideology behind the party and the international aspect to it as well. I realised the narrow-mindedness of SF ideology, which ignored the wider class struggle. It didn't take me long to decide to join after that!"