Thousands have turned out for the #schoolstrike4climate protest outside Leinster House this afternoon, with school children making up the majority of the crowd.

Gathering at noon at St Stephen’s Green, the protest of roughly 8,000 made its way to Molesworth Street where a stage had been set up for speeches from a number of teenage activists. 

They were calling for the government to increase its action on climate change, with the disuse of fossil fuels a priority for many in the crowd. 

The movement today was part of a global initiative calling for action to end climate change, inspired by the school strikes by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. 

The event was being MC’d by Mollie Mercier-Redmond, a second-year student from North Wicklow Educate Together Secondary School, while among speakers was Salim Kajani, a third year student from St Michael’s in Dublin.

“I was sickened looking at statistics – only 7pc of our energy for transport comes from renewable resources. Knowing what is going on with climate change, it is ridiculous that this government seem to be doing basically nothing compared to what we could be doing,” said Salim. 

Speaking to Independent.ie, the Junior Cert pupil also expressed his anger that Geography is no longer a compulsory subject for second-level students in the junior cycle. 

“One of the big things is the fact that Geography was removed from the Junior cycle syllabus as a compulsory subject. It covers so many things, not only climate change but population and acid rain,” he said.

As for the importance of today’s protest he said:  

“You do have homelessness, lack of hospital beds, and Brexit, but this is one of the biggest issues and we need to focus on that.”

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