Around 50 young people from all over Ireland attended the fourth annual Socialist Youth festival in Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow.

Over the course of the three night event, a range of political topics were discussed – from sex trafficking to drugs and from the environment to the need for a school students’ union. Faustine, a CWI member from France brought to life the huge struggles of school and college students in France against the CPE with her speech on Saturday evening.

Hazel Kiersey (Cork SY) at her first youth festival "thought the meeting on sexual attitudes in the 21st century was really interesting. The discussion about how terrible sex education is, women’s position in society and the age of consent was great – it was very interesting to hear all the different experiences and views."

The highlight of the weekend for most people was the debate on socialism with Labour Youth and Ogra Shinn Fein on Sunday night. Paul McIntyre (Dublin SY) said: "The debate was the best part of the weekend for me because I got to see the views of others and I thought that we won the debate!"

It wasn’t only the politics that were successful. The traditional football match was won by the Southern SY team with the assistance of the volunteer chef. The GAMA documentary went down particularly well, illustrating the politics of Socialist Youth and the Socialist Party in action. Of course, the nightly socials – from live acoustic music to bitter fought table quizzes were extremely popular.

Everyone went from the youth festival enthused about the politics of Socialist Youth and inspired to campaign in schools, colleges and workplaces in the weeks and months ahead.

On  27 August Socialist Youth debated with Labour Youth and Ogra Shinn Fein as part of the SY Summer Festival. The debate was titled "What is socialism and how can we achieve it?"

All present agreed that young people must fight back against the rule of profit which leads to war, exploitation and environmental destruction. We also agreed that young people need to discuss and build an alternative to capitalism, and that this alternative was socialism.

The debate, however, was over what socialism means. The Labour Youth speaker said socialism meant more equality, freedom and democracy, without explaining what these terms mean in practice. OSF also said socialism meant equality and that socialism didn’t require public ownership of big business but co-ops of workers instead.

Daniel Waldron, the Socialist Youth speaker argued that socialism meant replacing the rule of profit, with the rule of people, through democratic public ownership of big business. He pointed out that as long as the super rich control big business, they will control society.

On the issue of how socialism is achievable, LY said we should try to get a Labour Party government, build the trade unions and also protest. OSF argued that we should get a Sinn Fein government who will then get a 32 county Republic and we can then get socialism.

Socialist Youth members speaking from the floor demonstrated that neither Labour nor SF are a real alternative as both when in power supported privatisations, hand-outs to the rich and water charges. The point was also made that even if genuine socialists became the government they would quickly be opposed by big business.

In the past left-wing governments have faced sabotage, lock-outs and coups by the bosses to stop them putting people before profit. To stop this happening we must break with capitalism. History has shown that there is no half-way house between workers’ democracy and the bosses’ system.

If you want to fightback against the rule of profit, don’t settle with attempts to tinker with the rotten system – join the struggle for a socialist society based on people before profit, join Socialist Youth today.

The 2006-07 college year will see the Socialist Party organised in more third level colleges in the South than ever before.

Throughout the year we will be organising public meetings on topics such as "War on Iraq, Iran and Lebanon" and "Warning: McDowell is Tanaiste … How much more of his right-wing bigoted agenda will he impose?" with guest speakers such as Joe Higgins TD.

We will also be showing the documentary on the historic GAMA strike in which the Socialist Party played an important role.

We have a record of campaigning in the colleges and are to the forefront in opposing neo-liberal "reforms", budget cut-backs, and rip-off on-campus franchises. We campaign against sexism, sectarianism, racism and for a living student grant for all.

We stand for students' unions to become fighting organisations not a playground for careerists and hacks. If you want to help build a campaigning alternative to the political establishment join your college's Socialist Party / Socialist Students Society today.