The College View Issue 8

Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

thecollegeview.com

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DCU CAMPUS RESIDENCES APPLY CHARGES FOR PLACES DCU Campus Residences are introducing a €50 administration fee for incoming first-year students that are applying for a room on campus for the 2019/2020 year.

The fee will be non-refundable even for applicants who do not get a room on campus, according to their website. It was previously free to apply for a room through the Campus Residences website, however now each student must pay this fee in order to be eligible for a room on campus.

“I always knew that private landlords had no morals when it came to charging students nine and ten grand for accommodation. But at least your money is giving you something in return. Now the campus accommodation system expects us to pay €50 and not even get anything guaranteed in return. This leads me to believe the college isn’t any better than these corrupt landlords,” said Ellen Lane, a first year global business student hoping to secure on-campus accommodation next year.

The accommodation providers previously tried to introduce a €20 fee for the 2018/2019 academic year but decided against it before registration began last year. They have now decided to implement this charge but instead raise the price to €50 for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Campus Residences released an of-

ficial response saying: “We understand the pressure that students are under and we want to do everything that we can to make that process as fair and efficient as we possibly can for everyone concerned.”

They went on to say that this same fee is in other universities and private student accommodation. Shanowen Square charges a deposit upon application, which is refunded if the student is not guaranteed a room due to oversubscription. According to their website, Shanowen Halls contacts applicants which are successful in securing a room and arranges a method for deposit payment then. “ [the fee] has been introduced in an effort to get a clearer picture of the number of applicants who genuinely wish to reside in on-campus accommodation and to discourage non-serious applications who register for accommodation at DCU.” The College View was told by another staff member in Campus Residence that the fee was being introduced to encourage Leaving Cert students to apply earlier for accommodation. Yet, applying earlier does not give students an advantage because rooms are allocated in a lottery system where students names are chosen at random.

Applying earlier would only be advantageous in a ‘first come first served’ basis for the new first-year students, which is not the case.

The Students’ Union were made aware about the introduction of a €50 deposit by Campus Residences last summer, however, they were not in-

Features

Last resort: the student sofa surfing epidemic

Donal Corrigan Deputy Video Editor @thecollegeview

Page 17

Paying the non refundable fee would not guarantee your place in DCU campus accommodation.

Credit: Alison Clair

formed that this deposit would not be returned to unsuccessful applicants.

“If it is a case where people apply, they don’t get the room, and they don’t get the €50 back... from a personal perspective, I would definitely have an issue with that. I don’t think it’s fair. I wouldn’t think its right,” said DCU SU President Vito Moloney Burke.

Threshold, the housing rights charity, says that DCU accommodation does not fall under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. This act sets out the rights of tenants and landlords.

Students are not included in this act as they are not tenants in the accommodation for 365 days of the year.

Students that already have a profile set up on the website, such as second and third years, will not have to pay this new fee. They will go through a first come first served basis in contrast to the first years ‘lottery system’ that is used to allocate rooms.

Campus Residences advertise 1,400 rooms for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

RECOMMENDATIONS given by the Labour Court to end the dispute over working conditions for nurses and midwives are likely to be accepted by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).

The INMO is viewing the deal favourably and urged its members to accept the recommendations which would lead to newly qualified staff nurses being paid up to €38,036 a year compared to €31,110.

“I think we have certain aspects that require further negotiations,” said INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha.

Contract negotiations will be carried out over the next three weeks and will

Sports

Opinion

Gaeilge

News

Archery hit the target in GMIT intervarsity

The ethical ambiguity of awarenss challenges

Mallacht an damhsa

GiveBlood come to DCU for first time in three years

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INMO consider recommendations from the Labour Court Cáit Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me

lead to a ballot for the 40,000 members of the INMO which will take place from March 11th until March 28th. The result of this ballot will be announced on March 28th.

The Labour Court deliberated over the recommendations during the past few weeks, with some talks continuing until 2:30am in the morning, while the INMO continued to hold 24-hour work stoppages.

Three days of strike action, as well as a public rally through Dublin City, resulted in tens of thousands of outpatient appointments being affected, however, patients receiving life-preserving care were still looked after by paid skeleton staff.

However, this is the second time in 100 years that nurses and midwives have taken industrial action against

Continues on Page 6...

Editorial

2 INSIDE The Hype

Deputy Editor Gabija Gataveckaite

OSCARS 2019 TWO PAGE SPREAD PAGES 5 AND 5

Food

GRUB GUIDE:SHOUK READ ON PAGE 14

Editor’s piece Music

21 SAVAGE ON THIN ICE READ MORE PAGE 3

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Callum Lavery, Deputy editor: Gabija Gataveckaite

Illustrations editor: Roise McGagh

News editors: Cáit Caden, Ellen Fitzpatrick & Emily Sheahan Deputy News editors: Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque, Catherine Gallagher, Roisin Phelan

Images editor: Alison Clair Deputy Images edit: Michael Walsh

Production editors: James Nolan & Rachel Halpin Features editor: Gabija Gataveckaite Deputy features editor: Ciara O’Loughlin Arts editor: Aoibhín Bryant Deputy arts editors: Sarah Barrett & Aine O’Boyle Lifestyle editor: Lorna Lawless Deputy Lifestyle editors: Beibhinn Thorsch & Eoin Harte

Chief Sub-editor: Roisin Cullen

Podcast editors: Lucien Waugh Daly, Niamh Dunne & Ian Brennan Sub-editors: Ellen Butler, Róisín Phelan, Sabrine Donohoe, Clara Kelly, John Morley, Eoin Harte, David Kelly, Alex Barrett, Emma Costigan, Becky Ferris, Anja Zauers, Roisin Maguire, Shauna Burdis, Ruth Delaney, Sara Rountree, Dáire Denby, Tara McGahan, Lauren Allen, Natasha Lynch, Thomas Hamilton Contacts

Gaeilge editor: Clíona Hughes Deputy Gaeilge editor: Jordan Hussain

editor@thecollegeview.com

Sports editor: Gerard Grimes, Deputy sports editors: John Morley & Hugh Farrell

features@thecollegeview.com

Opinion editor: Orla Dwyer, Deputy opinion editor: Clara Kelly

gaeilge@thecollegeview.com

Social media editor: Amy Louise Donohoe & Roise McGagh Video editor: Lauren Timlin, Deputy video editors: Donal Corrigan, Dara Browne, Jenny Wong, Sathishaa Mohan

news@thecollegeview.com

opinion@thecollegeview.com

sports@thecollegeview.com Thanks to Sportsfile, SLC, Office of Student Life

Follow our journalism online:

Facebook: The College View Twitter: @thecollegeview Website: thecollegeview.com

J

ust from this issue, it is very clear to see that election season is slowly dawning upon us.

As well as the usual Student Union sabbatical positions, the university will see a record-breaking amount of four referendums taking place this spring. Students will be asked to consider what the SU stance is on Palestine, drug decriminalisation, if DCU should become a smoke-free campus and most importantly, if the union should leave the USI. Our reporters go into detail as to what these referendums entail in a referendum spread in the news section.

As two of the four referendums were triggered by societies, it’s clear to see see how involved students are in politics and how important it is to them, now more so than ever.

Like every year, the editorial team is preparing for the upcoming student elections. This year, there are more female candidates running for positions in the SU than previous years, another positive development. Not only are there more students interested in political change, more women are now stepping forward to be a part of that change.

As always, our coverage of the elections will be rigorous, both in the paper and online. Our podcast editors will run special election coverage where candidates will debate on student issues and their manifestos on the podcast, so keep an eye out for that.

The opinion section in the View has proven to be one of my favourites this year and this issue illustrates why. Student nurse Ciarán Mac an tSaoir wrote a brilliant op-ed this week on the need for better pay and treatment. The INMO strikes have not only dominated headlines these past few weeks, but split the country in half. From Ciaran’s account, we can see one more time that if an issue is hitting an industry hard, chances are that students in that industry are being hit even harder and this rears its head in his piece.

This is also prevalent in the housing crisis as both the features and lifestyle sections address sofa surfing, how to cope with it and why it happens. Hidden homelessness is more prevalent in universities, especially in Dublin universities, where the average cost of rent is a staggering €1,620.

For a lighter read, The Hype, in its colourful and bright glory, gives us a rundown of this year’s Oscar predictions. While A Star is Born, The Favourite and Roma are predicted to sweep up the competition, critics have argued that Black Panther may have been shafted by the committee.

Our Arts Editor Aoibhín Bryant and her Deputy Aine O’Boyle discuss the trials and tribulations, as well as what to expect in the coming weeks, so prepare for an enticing read.

As we step into spring and as we swing into election season, prepare for another installment of some great student journalism, available for free throughout campus every fortnight.

News

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A mural on sexual harassment exhibited in DCU Cait Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me

A mural that promotes awareness of sexual harassment was erected on the DCU Glasnevin campus by DCU Students’ Union and the Union of Students Ireland (USI), last week.

The mural is an element of the ‘It Stops Now’ campaign for the Ending Sexual Harassment and Violence in Third-Level Education (ESHTE) project which is funded by the European Commission and lead by the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NCWI).

“It’s echoing the ‘I believe her’ sentiment,” said NCWI spokesperson Tara Brown, project coordinator, about the mural and added that “the underlying message is ‘it stops now’.”

Over a third of female students experienced sexual harassment and coercion, according to research carried out by the NUI Galway SMART Consent team in 2018.

The study showed that sexual harassment experiences were not as high amongst male students, however many did state that they were victims of unwanted sexual attention.

The study included 632 students and 54 per cent of women in first year of

A mural which magnifies sexual harassment was on display in DCU. The mural is part of a larger project lead my the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

college stated they faced sexual harassment. That figure rose to 64 per cent for women in second year and 70 per cent in third year. The figures for men in those years were 25 per cent, 37 per cent and 40 per cent.

“Boys will be held accountable for their actions” and “give us a smile” are two of the various messages that are

part of the mural which was displayed on DCU’s Henry Grattan building and in other universities, including University College Cork.

However, the mural is no longer completely on display on the DCU campus. It is not currently known if the mural was physically torn down or was destroyed by weather conditions

USI and Drugs.ie team up for harm reduction Catherine Gallagher Deputy News Editor @Cather_i_ne THE HSE and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) are asking students to consider their use of drugs when socialising.

“Year on year we’re seeing an increase, a visible increase in students participating in recreation drug use,” President of the USI Síona Ní Chatháil told The College View. ”It’s not the model of telling people not to take drugs because we know that that doesn’t work.”

The two bodies are collaborating on the #SaferStudentNights campaign by providing information in relation to drug use between February and April this year which coincides with the second academic semester. Through social media and physical distribution of information on campuses, it aims to highlight the risks with drugs associated with clubbing such as MDNA, cocaine and ketamine.

The USI was approached by the HSE to partner with Drugs.ie, which is managed by the HSE National Social Inclusion Office, on the initiative.

“We’re not saying nobody’s allowed to use drugs... what we are saying is make sure you’re that you’re well educated on the issue, that you’ve done your research and that you use a harm reduction approach if you do want to take drugs,” said Ní Chatháil.

Ní Chatháil said the issue is one of growing relevence. “If you’re having predrinks or if you’re on a night out that this conversation is happening

Credit Alison Clair

as it was held by adhesive alone on an outside building.

The mural went up on February 13th but only a few messages could still be seen just a day later.

“When it comes to the mural, not everyone has been the victim of sexual harassment. The whole point is that people are able to educate themselves

Surf n Sail and Canoe Club get wet for charity Donal Corrigan Deputy Video Editor @thecollegeview

Síona Ní Chatháil said the #SaferStudentNights campaing is “not the model of telling people not to take drugs because we know that that doesn’t work”.

and that people are supporting each other.”

She said they inititially wanted to run the campaign leading up to exam season.

“From our perspective and our experience we’ve seen rising levels of students and engaging and using drugs to focus around exam time,” she said.

While alcohol is the most commonly used substances among the general population, it is followed by cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines.

Data shows that up to 4.4 per cent of 15-34 year olds used MDMA within the past year.

“Social media has become one of our most important media, and in many ways, the activity and support we receive on Twitter has in part played a role in the direction and delivery of the #SaferStudentNights campaign,” said Nicola Corrigan of Drugs.ie.

“If you somebody who’s after taking too much or you’ve taken too much, always contact the authorities,” said Ní Chatháil.

Credit USI

“Don’t just try and ride it out yourself with nobody trusted around you.

Always make sure you’ve told people you’ve take drugs and how much you think you’ve taken. Don’t mix your drugs either, or your substances,”she continued.

Chairperson for the Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) in DCU Declan Moore said that he welcomes the campaign. He outlined that while SSDP don’t purport any substance as being “definitively safe,” they acknowledge that these harm reduction recommendations allow them to be taken in a safer way.

“While these traditional substances have bodies of research allowing us to understand their effects and risks, there are many substances on the market today that are less understood.

Because we have less knowledge on what these substances do the body, they present more risk to the user’s health, especially if they are consumed under the dosage guidelines of another substance.”

on what is the issue,” said USI VP for Welfare Damien McLean.

The aim of the project is focused on the prevention of sexual harassment in third level colleges throughout Europe “through building a feminist understanding and analysis of the causes and effects of sexual harassment and violence.”

Brown believes this issue has been “challenged “ as a result of recent of events such as the Belfast Rugby trial and the rape case in Cork, where a victim’s underwear was used as evidence.

“All the data from (from the project) shows that the most likely people to experience sexual harassment are women and those women are aged between 18-25,” stated Brown.

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NCWI) partnered with the other bodies for the project which has been going since 2016. These included the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) in Cyprus, Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS), The Women’s Issues and The Women’s Equality Commissioner and the German Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich.

25 focus groups were used for these projects and the NCWI set up a national advisory committee of representatives for it also.

DCU’s Surf N’ Sail and Canoe Club raised €700 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) following their annual Christmas Swim.

They handed the cheque to the charity in Howth Harbour after returning from the Christmas break.

Over €5,000 has been raised by the event for the RNLI over the last five years that the club has run it. Students ran into the sea at Balscadden Bay in Howth after getting sponsorship from family and friends, which was donated.

“I was overwhelmed by the turnout on the day,” said Chair of Surf N’ Sail, Matthew Boyle.

“Fair play to all the students that have come down and braved to the December Irish Sea… after all it’s for a great cause,” he added.

The RNLI is a team of volunteers who provide a 24-hour rescue service in both Ireland and the UK. The charity also maintains seasonal lifeguard services on beaches and a flood rescue service.

There were representatives present from the RNLI for the Christmas swim event, who arrived in a speedboat as the students entered the water.

In tradition, the RNLI crew took the plunge into the water alongside the students.

There were over 20 people in attendance at the charity swim, as the students stripped down to their togs and took an icy plunge.

A competition was held for the last person to remain in the cold water.

The burrito restaurant chain Boojum donated a voucher as the prize for the competition.

Second year International Relations student, Gavin Rea was named victor after an impressive time of 18 minutes in the ocean.

It was the first year that Surf N’ Sail and Canoe Club held the event together. This proved to be a great success as people in attendance were at a record high for the charity swim.

As the students came in from the wintry ocean, more volunteers from the RNLI were waiting for them on the beach. In tradition with previous years, they had a BBQ waiting for the shivering students to warm them up.

The RNLI was established in 1824, where it’s first gold medal was awarded to Charles Fremantle, who swam to out to a stranded Swedish brig that got into difficulty just of the coast of Christchurch.

4

News in Brief

News

Referendum: USIXIT - Should I stay or should I go?

MINISTER ENCOURAGES STEM ENTRIES FOR SCIFEST 2019 Minister for Education Joe McHugh has called on second-level students in Ireland to put their science, technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) skills to the test as he launched SciFest’s call for entries for its 12th annual SciFest@ College competition.

The competition, which has seen 60,000 students participate since its launch in 2008, is the largest second level STEM fair in Ireland and it aims to give students of all abilities and backgrounds the opportunity to develop research, problem solving, critical thinking and presentation skills.

MIGRANTS AND TECH WORKERS TEAM UP FOR START UP BUSINESSES Migrants and technology workers will be collaborating to develop business ideas at a startup weekend in Dublin from March 8th-10th.

People living in direct provision and other migrants will be working with developers, designers and mentors to develop ideas for startups. Entrants will have 54 hours to come up with an idea and built a prototype for the product.

NCRC RESEARCH IN NEUROBLASTOMA AWARDED FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION A National Children’s Research Centre project in Neuroblastoma research won the award for Technology Innovation on February 7th.

Dr. Olga Piskareva received an SFI TIDA (Science Foundation Ireland’s Technology Innovation Development Award) for her extensive research on Neuroblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer tumour that begins in the nerve tissues of infants and very young children. It affects an average of 10 Irish children a year.

This type of cancer begins in certain early forms of nerve cells, most often found in an embryo or fetus and it varies in how quickly or slowly it can develop. Occasionally, in cases of very young children, the cancer cells can die without treatment and the tumour disappears on its own.

SAFECILITY AND LIMERICK COUNCILS TO FIND FIRE SAFETY SOLUTIONS Limerick City and County Council teamed up with Safecility to provide innovative fire safety solutions for Limerick City’s historical buildings.

The solutions will be carried out in Limerick City’s Georgian Quarter, where there is a vacancy rate of up to 67 per cent of the upper floors of the Georgian and other historical buildings. The ground floors of these buildings are occupied by retail, commercial or office space.

Limerick City and County Council and Enterprise Ireland collaborated to launch a challenge to find solutions to address fire safety issues in historic buildings.

Four referenda are being put forward by DCU Students’ Union this semester.

Emily Sheahan News Editor @emilyaine_s DCU Students’ Union sabbaticals and executives have voted to put the matter of affiliation with Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to referendum.

Should the subsequent petitions pass, the student body will vote on whether or not it wants to stay affiliated with USI. DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke said it was likely that the issue would first be brought to the Class Rep Council, whose vote would mandate and trump that of the SU. “The executives decided that from our own personal perspectives, as a collective, we think that the organisations just aren’t really compatible,” said Moloney Burke. “I personally think that the DCU Students’ Union and the DCU student body would benefit from a disaffiliation.”

Moloney Burke said that students must decide what they think the cost benefit is. As they spend “well over €100,000 worth of students’ money” every year to be members of USI, he said its “right and proper that on a regular basis they get to answer the question: ‘do you want to keep spending that money?’”

This money is sourced from the student levy, which is paid by all students, regardless of fee status.

Moloney Burke said that one of the final straws for the SU was the lack of support they received from USI during their bigger campaigns.

“You look at times of crises, for example, Shanowen Shakedown or Save Our Shepherd, and you have to say really that is when your national union should come into its own and really step up to the plate for us, for DCU students, and from my own personal perspective I don’t believe they did on

either occasion,” he said.

USI President Síona Ní Chatháil said that USI very much placed student accommodation on the national radar during Shanowen Shakedown.

“The thing is that nothing happens swiftly at a national level,” she said.

“We have used all the information available to us and built on the work of DCUSU to bring this into the Ministers’ attention and also into the department’s attention as a national issue and made sure that housing has been a priority on the agenda.

“When it comes to Save Our Shepherd, we supported the DCU Students’ Union in any possible way, we supported solidarity actions, and anything they asked us to do in relation to Save Our Shepherd. This semester in particular we’ve put a focus on students in direct provision.”

Moloney Burke said USI is “stretched too thin” and unable to provide quality support. “It’s very difficult to cater for all of these different groups, with these different problems, all over the country. From what I can see it’s obviously almost impossible.”

Moloney Burke said that the smaller unions across the country benefit greatly from being members of the USI, however, he knows that there are definitely frustrations around the country.

“Some of the larger unions do have similar frustrations to ourselves.”

Ní Chatháil said she’s “not concerned about disaffiliation from other unions.”

“I think what is important is to focus on each member individually and the issues that are on each campus,” she said.

The USI president said it’s not possible for local students’ unions to focus on national issues if they branch out on their own. “I’m constantly in

Credit: Roise McGagh

and out of the Department of Education and the Higher Education Authority and it’s simply not possible to do that from a local level.”

While he commended the work the USI have done on previous campaigns, Moloney Burke still sees the DCU student body, “that is really active in recent years,” doing a sufficient job independently in these situations.

“USI is an organisation of great intentions and in the past they have run really, really wonderful campaigns looking at Repeal and the Marriage Equality referendum...If you look at perhaps UCD or UL, who aren’t members of USI, [they] have also done a lot of work on those campaigns.”

As members of USI, DCUSU are required to attend all training they provide, all national councils, and other USI activities. Moloney Burke said that when they attend the training sessions, they have often received the training themselves weeks previous.

“I think this adds not just a great cost in terms of financially to our students but also an opportunity cost in so far as it takes us out of the office for a substantial period of time throughout the year, meaning that we don’t necessarily get to focus on our own specific students at these times,” he said.

“There’s still a few bits and pieces that we need to drill down on if this referendum is to go live,” he said.

“I do know there’s a group of DCU students who do go to Pink Training every year - and that is again a wonderful resource.”

Pink Training is a weekend-long, USI run event that focuses on LGBTA issues and activism. 21 DCU delegates and VP for Welfare and Equality Aisling Fagan attended the 26th annual Pink Training in November 2018.

It is currently unclear whether DCU students would have the option of

attending Pink Training should the student body vote to disaffiliate.

However, Moloney Burke said he personally hasn’t “attended an event this year that would be a big loss to the student body should we disaffiliate, or couldn’t be replaced.” He said they need to be having that conversation over the coming weeks, regarding whether there can be an alternative and how students feel towards it.

Ní Chatháil said that certain positions in USI would be at risk should DCU vote to disaffiliate.

“The reality is, we only have as many officers as we can pay for,” she said. “It was one of the things called for by DCUSU in previous years, that we put more of a focus on postgraduate issues - so we brought in a part-time Postgraduate Vice President.

And it was called for and supported by DCUSU that we would have a fulltime Irish Language Officer.

“DCU has taken a very prominent position in USI and really influenced the wealth of policies of the USI particularly over the last couple of years since the last referendum when the DCU body voted to remain affiliated,” Ní Chatháil said.

A date has yet to be decided on for the referendum that will take place should the petitions pass. At least two referenda will take place during the SU elections, with voting open from March 5th to 7th. Moloney Burke said he imagines it would be “likely” that the matter would got to referendum this semester..

USI represents 374,000 students across the country. Current members of USI include higher institutions such as University College Cork, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Dublin Institute of Technology and Trinity College

Dublin.

News

5

Referendum: Students to vote in referendum on campus smoking Cait Caden News Editor @ AreYou_Caden_Me DCU students will be given the opportunity to vote on whether they want their Students’ Union to look at the practicality of smoke-free zones on campus.

It is expected that students will be able to vote in a referendum in March on whether they want to mandate the SU to look into the possibility of smoke-free areas around DCU. “I think it’s a good step in the right direction in terms of our student’s health,” said DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke about the benefits of possibly regulating smoking on certain areas of the DCU campus.

Moloney Burke also mentioned the “environmental” and “financial” benefits there are for the restriction on smoking while on DCU property.

DCU is one of the few third level institutions remaining that do not restrict tobacco consumption in some way.

Athlone IT and Westport College were one of the first to go completely smoke-free, while University College Dublin, Trinity College and University Limerick have varying levels of smoke regulation on campus.

However, the purpose of this referendum is not to vote on whether students want to make their campus smoke free but on whether or not they want to mandate the SU to explore the option of going smoke free or introducing some type of regulation.

The SU will then “explore the oth-

er options” if students voted for the regulation of on-campus smoking depending on the “general consensus” of the students, according to Moloney Burke.

These options included complete bans or restricted areas for smokers to go.

“I feel that it would benefit the majority of people as people who don’t smoke don’t get any second-hand smoke, smokers and part-time smokers would probably do it less, or at least would probably be put off going outside campus to smoke,” said final year Multimedia student and smoker Aaron Jones on whether it would be a good idea in the long run to introduce restrictions for on-campus smoking.

“Then again, people should have a

Referendum: SSDP ref not ‘advocating drug use it is just advocating support for people in a time of need.’

Callum Lavery Editor-in-chief @callum_lavery DCU Students’ Union may be mandated to advocate the decriminalisation of drug use for personal consumption for those aged 18 and over.

Following a petition and campaign launched by the DCU Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) the students of DCU will now have the opportunity to vote on the college’s stance on drug use.

The society poses the following question for referendum: “DCUSU shall actively support and campaign for the decriminalisation of the possession of drugs for personal consumption for adults aged 18 and over in Ireland.”

Chairperson of DCU SSDP and final year enterprise computing student, Declan Moore said that he believes the passing of the referendum to be in the best interest of students and hopes that the mandate would lead to a drug policy in Ireland similar to the Portuguese model in the future.

“Basically the referendum that we are attempting to call at the moment is essentially that the university take a stance on decriminalisation on personal use amounts of drugs so essentially it will try to mirror what was brought in in Portugal in 2001,” said Moore.

In July 2001 Portugal changed their drug policy. The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization.

However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than a ten-day supply of that substance.

Moore told the College View, “We held a similar campaign three years ago on the legalisation and regulation of cannabis for both recreational and medical markets which passed in DCU. “So we are thinking with all that is happening with decriminalisation around the world and in Ireland at the moment that it is the perfect time for student activism to stand up and take part in these campaigns.”

“As you can see with most social and political movements a lot of them came from universities Repeal the 8th, marriage equality medicinal cannabis as well, within that.”

“So really it is on universities to be able to have these discussions and allow young people to take part in the debate and discussion.”

DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke is unable to take an official stance on the referendum on behalf of the SU but stated that he is personally in favour of decriminalisation.

Moloney Burke was interested in what the findings of the referendum will be and praised the work done by the SSDP in introducing more compassionate drug and alcohol policies to the university earlier in the semester.

“The guys from SSDP have done great work this year I’ve seen it first hand, they have done really good work

with the new policy that DCU have released recently which puts more emphasis on supporting people who are currently experiencing issues with drug misuse either directly or indirectly.”

“I think they really are a group with the best intentions and I hope that shines through during campaign season. “ Although Moloney Burke said that he did not know of any groups planning to campaign against the referendum at time of publication he stated that those against will receive a stipend for campaigning but must follow referendum guidelines “Look, we all know that it can be a bit of a divisive subject, but ultimately it is just a referendum that aims to provide extra care to our peers and vulnerable members of our community so I hope that people will see it from that perspective.”

“I think it’s a really relevant issue, it’s a well known fact that in this city in 2019 that there is a really big issue with drug dependency and drug misuse and there needs to be a big education drive on drugs and what they are and their effects “I think a referendum like this would only give all the more agreement to actually do that and give a scope to further inform our student body.”

“Ultimately the referendum isn’t in anyway shape or form advocating drug use it is just advocating support for people in a time of need.”

right to choose to smoke on their own campus, I guess. Be it in a restricted zone or anywhere they please,” said Jones.

Moloney Burke said the smoking restrictions introduced in UL “worked really well” from what he could see when visiting the university.

He also mentioned Athlone IT which has total tobacco ban on campus.

Moloney Burke stated that the “broader picture” of the “entire student body” will be looked at on this issue.

If students vote for the SU to look into DCU becoming more non-smoker friendly then those smoke-free areas are “not going to be policed,” stated Moloney Burke.

“I wouldn’t imagine that we’ll have people going around the campuses with sprays of water,” he said.

Moloney Burke reiterated the fact that the referendum was not on immediately introducing smoking restrictions, but it allowed students to vote on whether they wanted the SU to look at the possibility of smoke-free zones or not.

It was unclear how such regulations would be enforced. “I can’t say how we will enforce it. This mandate, this would give me a mandate to explore, research it and find ways that work and ways that don’t work and land on one that suits us,” added Moloney Burke.

There is no set date for the referendum yet, however, it is likely to be held sometime in March.

Referendum: Solidarity with Palestine Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque DeputyNews Editor

@BrendanFKP

DCU Students’ Union could have to advocate for a boycott of imported goods from Israeli settlements in Palestine due to an upcoming referendum.

DCU Students for Justice in Palestine society (SJP) successfully campaigned to hold the referendum. Voting will take place between March 5 The exact wording of what students will be asked is: “DCU SU will adopt a long-term stance in solidarity with Palestine by affiliating DCU SU with the Palestinian movement for BDS.” Students in favour of the motion should vote yes, while those who are opposed should vote no.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement seeks to place international pressure on Israel to advance the rights of Palestinians.

According to the BDS Movement website, they have three main aims: end the occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantle the Israeli West Bank barrier.

They also want to get Israel to recognise the “fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality”. Finally, they want to respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.

BDS – as the name suggests – hopes to achieve this through three tactics.

First, they want people and companies to boycott Israeli institutions and individuals who are complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.

Chairperson of SJP Stephanie O’Toole said that “we currently don’t know at the moment what DCU, in particular, is trading”. She added that “With regards to academics or institutions, [sic] we don’t target identity or one academic in particular - it’s all about complicity.”

Divestment seeks to stop these same

Israeli institutions and individuals from receiving money from foreign investors. This includes universities.

Through a Freedom of Information request, O’Toole found out that DCU is currently in three agreements with three Israeli academic institutions.

They are the Hadassah University Medical Centre, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Finally, the BDS Movement website states that it wants to pressure governments to sanction Israel by “by ending military trade, free-trade agreements and expelling Israel from international forums such as the UN and FIFA.” If the referendum were to pass, it would not cut links between DCU and Israeli institutions and individuals complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. Rather, it would mandate the SU to advocate for an end to these ties.

O’Toole thinks it’s likely the referendum will pass. She added: “One of the main aims of the referendum is about awareness. It’s about information. It’s about mandating the Students’ Union to take on either Israeli apartheid week or Palestinian solidarity day.”

In regard to the referendum, SU President Vito Moloney Burke said: “The SU doesn’t have a stance because the referendum itself is to dictate our stance.” The SU itself will not be campaigning for either outcome.

However, Moloney Burke said that “we all have our own personal views, and they will be respected if people want to be vocal about them”.

Assuming the referendum is successful, he discussed how - in order to follow through on the mandate - the SU would explore the options available to them, such as lobbying. He said: “It’s very feasible for us [the SU] to just get to work on it, and should it go through, cool.”

Both O’Toole and Moloney Burke said they had yet to encounter any opposition to the referendum.

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NURSES STRIKE 2019

INMO consider recommendations from the Labour Court Cáit Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me Continued from Page 1...

...the government because they believe working conditions in the profession are not fair compared to other healthcare professionals in the country.

“Our graduates are not on a par with other with other health professionals.

If you have a midwife that’s done a four-year degree, then done a Masters programme and she is competing with the likes of dietitians and physios.

She’s not on any way the same income level as them,” said a senior nurse on the picket lines of the Rotunda hospital during the first day of work stoppages.

“And why is there not parity of income for people who put in the same

and have such an important role in life as we do,” she continued.

The main reason for the strike was for pay parity which INMO members stated will lead to less emigration of Irish trained nurses which will result in safer staffing levels.

In some circumstances, nurses who spent years in one speciality and one specific ward were rostered to work in a completely different area of patient care. For example, nurses who usually cared for babies could be transferred for the day into elderly medicine.

All industrial action by the 40,000 INMO members is suspended while

they consider the Labour Courts recommendations.

“I feel nurses in Ireland do deserve more pay. Especially for the environment and lack of staff it’s so unsafe,” said NHS nurse Leanne Feely who trained in Ireland and emigrated to the UK. Nurses in the UK receive a pay rise each year if you achieve the amount of study days you need to, even if your newly qualified and on the lower end of the pay scale. Nurses in Ireland are hoping to introduce similar incentives based on the Labour Court recommendations.

in the recommendations.

“Healthcare assistants should be trained to do observations and blood sugars ect. As in Ireland they cannot do this which also adds to nurses lists of jobs. In the UK HCA’s can do these jobs making less work on the nurses and they can focus on medication and care of patients which is paramount,” added Feely.

“Having a million things to do with little staff ends up with mistakes,” she said.

Explainer: The nurses strike and how we got here

Editorial comment on INMO strike

Cáit Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me

NURSES and midwives are not economists and should not tell Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Finance and Expenditure Paschal Donohoe where to allocate money in relation to public sector wages. More to the point, they should not have to especially when they do not have the time to do so while being understaffed and underpaid.

The topic of fiscal responsibility regarding whether nurses should receive pay parity or not is the main point of friction. Public sector nurses and midwives, that are part of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, entered into the profession knowing they would get paid less than other public sector healthcare professionals. However, that doesn’t make their lack of pay parity right. It could be argued instead that it is exploitative.

The issues of nurses and midwives working conditions have been going on for decades indicating that something needs to change, rather than stating that it is not financially practical to do something.

A significant way in which politicians showed their detachment from the main issue that nurses were striking for was when they said they would enter into talks about staffing levels rather than about pay.

The entire reason for nurses and midwives going on strike was about pay. The bottom line is that nurses and midwives want to be paid equally for the amount of work they do and on the same scale as other healthcare professionals.

“The situation that newly qualified general nurses and nurses in general at the moment in Ireland is unacceptable dangerous and they deserve so much more than they are getting,” she continued.

Feely stated that “Ireland depends heavily on student nurses for general care of patients which should also not be the case makes it a very difficult environment to learn in” and that the “UK system is a more fair.”

Work delegation would also lead to safer staffing levels which was a main reason for the nurse’s strike. However, this did not feature as a main objective

“I regret the inconvieniance this has caused patients,” was one of the most memorable lines from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on how he handled the nurses strike.

The 24 hour work stoppages is one of the most extreme ways 40,000 members of the INMO have protested against their working conditions that remain unchanged. However, during this time they ensured life preserving care was still given to patients by temporary staff which were paid by the HSE in that time.

Varadkar’s handling of the strike displays the lack of sympathy towards nurses and midwives and what they were striking for. He criticised picking a midweek day to strike rather than a weekend. The whole point of the strike was to cause an impact.

With other unions joining the INMO in the rally and on the picket lines as well as the overwhelming support they received, whether it was beeps by passing cars or donations of food, it’s clear that many people do stand with nurses.

It’s time for the government to figure out how they can show the same respect to nurses and midwives, two of the most valuable roles in Irish society, that the public does.

Credit: Flickr

Cáit Caden News Editor @AreYou_Caden_Me NURSES and midwives began talks of taking industrial action against the government late last year before completing three full 24-hour work stoppages and holding a public rally where supporters marched in solidarity with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).

Presently, the Labour Court has given its recommendations on how to resolve the issue of pay party amongst nurses and midwives.

The Labour Court, which is not a court of law but a body which provides recommendations based on how they believe disputes concerning employment law should be settled.

Therefore, even if the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation accept these recommendations the Government must also be willing to enter into negotiations, to solve the dispute based

on the recommendations.

Meeting the nurses demands of pay parity would cost the state nealry €300m to achieve, which is the equivalent of a 12 per cent pay increase across the board for all nurses and midwives, according to Minister for Finance and Expenditure Pascal Donohoe.

The Labour Court’s recommendations would cost up €35 million next year.

The reason for strike action being taken goes back decades. Harsh working conditions nurses and midwives must face were heightened by the Croke Park Agreement (CPA) which was brought in by the Fianna FailGreen Party coalition for all public sector workers.

Under the CPA, public sector workers had to create a new system amongst themselves with the aims of creating the same levels of productivity and efficiency with less money and less people in return for no compulsory redundancies or a decrease in pay rates. The CPA came into existence post-crash and post bail-out.

However, unions were concerned with certain parts of CPA such as rosters being changed, redeployment, working hours being extended and loss of allowances. Many of which happened to nurses as seen in scenarios of only two staff nurses working in a busy A&E or being rostered to work on a different ward that was not their speciality.

Although the CPA ended in 2014, nurses faced difficult conditions before the recession. The recent nurses and midwives strike represents the second time in 100 years that they have taken industrial action and many of the messages that were on placards back then

were on the picket lines in 2019, such as: “Dispute On Here.”

“The number of staff nurses fell by 1,754 (6 per cent) between 2008 and 2018, despite an ageing, growing population making the health service busier,” said the INMO when announcing the strike.

2018 was one of the worst years for hospital overcrowding according to the HSE. A main point that was brought up by INMO representatives was the topic of pay parity. It is general consensus that if nurses and midwives got paid a similar amount to other healthcare professionals such as physios or speech therapists that would lead to the retention of nurses trained in Ireland and subsequently less newly qualified nurses would emigrate. This would lead to safer staffing levels for both INMO members and patients.

Therefore, the recommendations by the Labour Court are increments, or increase in pay rates, but would also lead to pay parity.

Nurses are currently paid 20 per cent less than agency nurses.

One of the main concerns Donohoe and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had in conceding and providing the 40,000 INMO members with pay parity is that other unions would strike.

After the Labour Court gave their recommendations, Irish teachers have publicly considered taking strike action while the Ambulance service are currently taking industrial action.

If nurses demands are not met it could lead to more disruptions in terms of outpatient appointments, however if they are met Donohoe will need to undermine his own Public Service Stability Agreement.

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KISS week focused on consent

KISS week, formally known as SHAG week, focused on consent by offering more SMART consent workshops. Attendance was not high at these workshops last semester.

Amy Donohoe Social Media Editor @amydonohoe1 Students were given the opportunity to avail of the Smart consent workshops again this semester during KISS week.

Eighty students were educated in the SMART consent program this semester which brings the total to 643 students who voluntarily attended the program.

“The workshops were done again this semester as we had students asking for retraining of officers. So, it was detrimental that they were done again.

Also, it gave an opportunity to students who missed it in semester one, especially placement students,” said Irish Officer, Sorcha Ni Chonghaile.

When asked on how to improve the workshops Ni Chonghaile said: “to make it better, just make it more of an accessible module…so, more people

have to sit it.”

She continued to say, “I really enjoyed the workshops, but it could do with a refresher or a revamp.”

Isha Mc Donnell, who was chair of FEMSOC last year, reinforced the idea of SMART consent with Podge Henry, previous DCU Students’ Union VP for Equality and Welfare.

The aim of the program is to work with students, not provide classes, by using the evidence-based activities that they’ve have designed. No one is asked to give personal information or talk about their experiences, instead, the workshops are there to help others understand.

Sinead McGrath, who played a huge part in running the workshops, is a nurse in Student Health Service on St Patrick’s Campus and has vast experience in the area of women’s health, sexual and health matters. The Consent workshops began in Septem-

Credit: Mikey Walsh

ber 2017 because of her.

Former DCUSU VP for Equality and Welfare, Cody Byrne, looked into Bystander workshops and they were run over a six week period within small groups whereas SMART consent workshops were successfully facilitated to about a group of 30 in one session.

“I feel the SMART Consent workshops were quite eye-opening to what is considered and what is not considered consent. It was an effective way to deal with it, it opened up a normal conversation about the topic and at the end of it I left with more knowledge than I knew,” said first-year engineering student Sele Clement.

But second-year engineering student Billy Siggins said that he “felt it should be taught at a younger age, as incidents happen at a young age, and it’s easier to get kids to do a consent class than college students if it’s non-mandatory.”

Feminism and porn’s raunchy history Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque Deputy News Editor @ BrendanFKP Feminist porn can be more than rose petals and Barry Manilow, according to DCU researcher Caroline West.

West, who is researching pornography for her PhD, hosted a presentation that explained and explored the history of feminist porn for DCU’s Feminist Society on February 13th.

She made sure to emphasise that feminism and porn have a complicated relationship, partly due to competing ideas within feminist circles. “That’s the thing with feminism – there’s no feminism, there are feminisms,” she said.

Feminists like Robin Morgan and Catharine MacKinnon have a great disdain for porn, and specifically how it portrays women. Morgan once said, “Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice.”

West described these feminists as “SWERFs”, which stands for Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

Even within SWERF circles, opinions vary on porn and its impact on women. Generally, most SWERFs believe that it is not possible to consent to sex for money according to West.

When asked by The College View what to do about children accessing porn, West said that it’s important that everyone has porn literacy. She said children need to understand that

“What you’re seeing on screen isn’t real.”

A whole host of ethical questions were raised, such as “What do we mean by exploitation?” and “Do we choose anything under capitalism?”

The chairperson of the Feminist Society, Amy Ní Cholgáin, added that: “It’s important to have these discussions because if we only allow one narrative to permeate, it’s obviously one that’s damaging to women’s sexuality.”

West explained how research on porn is also not particularly great.

For example, she brought up a study which concluded that 88 per cent of porn contains violence.

However, the study categorised a whole list of activities as violent (even if they were consensual) and would put things such as hair pulling on the same level as spanking.

On the flip side, there was another study by researcher Alan McKee which took consent into account and found that only two per cent of porn contained violence. But this study was conducted in Australia, which has stricter laws when it comes to making “extreme” porn.

As such, the porn they were viewing may not have been representative of porn as a whole. West said it was important to be aware of how people’s biases affect these studies.

She quoted feminist Violet Blue, who said: “Degradation is in the eye of the beholder.”

PhD Student Caroline West said that “People should be watching more types of Credit: Brendan porn, not just PornHub - that’s crappy.”

Fernando Kelly Palenque

DCU menstrual education workshop.

Alison Clair Images Editor @aliclair_ A MENSTRUATION education workshop, organised by the DCU Student Union, HerCampus and Feminist societies, was held in the U last Wednesday as part of KISS week.

The workshop and presentation was given by Charlotte Amrouche, the founder of the project Míosta. Amrouche is a PhD researcher in NUIG

who focuses her work on women’s studies.

Míosta is a project which began in September 2018. It was developed to educate people about menstruation, and to promote the use of alternative and reusable products for periods.

“We hold workshops like these to promote sustainable products, and get rid of the stigmas in society surrounding getting your period,” said Amrouche.

Workshops like these include activ-

ities where people come to learn more about their period, and get answers to any questions that they might have had growing up.

“People come to these workshops for different reasons. Some have had great experiences with their periods, and some have had a very different journey,” said Amrouche.

Each person was invited to share their story, in an effort to get rid of the stigma of talking about menstruation with other people.

“There is still so much shame and stigma surrounding periods and menstruation, even though it’s such a natural process. Opening up these topics, exploring them and having healthy conversations about them is key,” said DCUSU VP for Welfare and Equality Aisling Fagan.

While the crowd in attendance was small, the participants that did attend all had their own reason to be there, a lot of which stemmed from the lack of education they received around men-

struation growing up.

“I really enjoyed the workshop.

It was so informative and gave participants the freedom and courage to discuss their relationship with their period in a relaxed environment. Also DCU have really been on board with promoting environmental awareness around campus so this discussion was perfect for KISS week tying both sustainability and sexual health together,” said final year Communications student Sinead O’Farrell.

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Gender equality in higher education addressed at World Government Summit in Dubai Niamh Quinlan Contributor @thecollegeview

THE Minister for Higher Education attended the World Government Summit in the United Arab Emirates last week to discuss, among other topics, solutions to gender inequality in higher education establishments.

Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor arrived in Dubai last week to participate in the Advanced Skills Global Policy Platform on February 10th and 11th as part of the World Government Summit, alongside other Minsters for

Higher Education, global education institutions and leading private CEOs. There she met her UAE counterpart, His Excellency Dr Ahmed Belhoul Al-Falasi, Minister of State for Higher Education and Advanced Skills.

Mitchell O’Connor attended the Global Gender Circle, an initiative created by the UAE to try and rectify the gender gap in women’s economic contribution. In her talks, she outlined previous Irish initiatives in “rectifying the gender imbalance at the top level in our higher education institutes” such as the Gender Action Plan and Senior Academic Initiative.

David Norris criticises citizens for missing HSE appointments Sonja Tutty Contributor @thecollegeview SENATOR David Norris said Irish healthcare would be better if people did not skip so many appointments, in a panel discussion in DCU on Monday.

Norris explained that long waiting times could be fixed if Irish people, “took some responsibility and showed up to their appointments,” in the DCU Law Society’s panel discussion, “Grá in the Law”.

He said Irish healthcare is brilliant despite the long waiting times, in response to an audience member’s question regarding Ireland’s healthcare system compared to the rest of the EU’s.

The question was based on the Health Inequalities in Europe report that found Ireland to be one of the most unequal countries in the EU regarding access to health. This is blamed primarily on the country’s two-tier health system and dependence on private health insurance.

Maria Walsh responded to the same audience member’s statement that Fine Gael perpetuated inequality in healthcare, by saying she did not know how the system could be fixed but hopes someone can offer an answer soon.

Maria announced on Sunday that she would be seeking a nomination from Fine Gael to be run in the European Parliament elections.

They were joined on the panel by

fellow gay rights activist and co-founder of Gay Community News, Tonie Walsh and Dell Diversity Officer, Ingrid Devin. The panel’s discussion was led by audience questions and queries submitted anonymously online.

Tonie took a question about equal rights in Northern Ireland and answered: “We need to be showing greater empathy to our brothers across the border.”

Furthermore, he added that Ireland should not only support change in Northern Ireland but should also detoxify unification just as: “the euro detoxified the tricolours.”

Following a question that asked if Ireland was doing enough on the ground to achieve equality, all panellist agreed that as long as the Catholic church ran any education it would never be good enough.

Tonie said sex and relationship education should be introduced at an earlier age and stated Norway is a great example of effective sex education.

Norris replied that as a devoted Church of Ireland member, schools should teach facts and that morals and religious values should be taught by parents at home.

After the event, DCU Law Society secretary Vanessa Devin said: “We were impressed with the panel and found they were really engaging with the audience,” and, “we found that our members really benefited from [the panel].”

The Gender Action Plan was an accumulation of research and setting up of a task force to tackle gender inequality in Irish third level institutes.

The Senior Academic Initiative was set up to tackle gender inequality among employment in higher education institutes nationwide. As part of this three-year plan, 45 new and additional female-specific senior academic positions were created in this sector.

Mitchell O’Connor addressed the steps taken so far with an audience of international leaders. She also signed a memorandum of understanding on how both Ministries can work together on addressing the global skills challenge with the UAE Minister of State for Higher Education and Advanced Skills.

In the UAE, 70 per cent of graduates are female and some 40 per cent of employees in Higher Education are women. A 2017 survey by the Dubai Statistics Centre showed the economic participation rate was at 53.6 per cent.

In 2017, research in Ireland showed that in the university sector some 51

Mitchell O’Connor attended the Global Gender Circle, an initiative created by the UAE to try and rectify the gender gap in women’s economic contribution.

per cent of lecturers were female, while only 24 per cent of professors were female. However, reports showed that it could take 20 years to “achieve the goal of a minimum of 40 per cent female representation at professor level” in Ireland.

The aim of the summit was to dis-

Credit: Flickr

cuss how changes due to technological advancement in the workplace can still benefit society and the people. Another change in the workplace that is required and must be adapted to is gender equality, an area Minister Mitchell O’Connor hopes Ireland to be “a world-leading country” in.

Reddit bans ‘Irish Sluts’ page after nude photos are shared Roisin Phelan Deputy News Editor @thecollegeview AN ‘IRISH SLUTS’ reddit page showing nude photos of women has been banned but several pages similar to it remain active.

The page originally featured candid photos of women going about their day.

However, as the popularity of the page grew there was a“shift in the kind of things being posted”, according to the page’s administrator.

Nude photos of women began to be posted on the page, to which the administrator said, “To any girls who see their photos being posted here, please shoot us a message and we’ll have them pulled immediately.”

The page was shut down by Reddit due to it being a violation of Reddit’s content policy against involuntary pornography which prohibits the “dissemination of images or video depicting any person in a state of nudity or

engaged in any act of sexual conduct apparently created or posted without their permission.”

Reddit users have discussed the shutting down of the page forum, with one user going by, ‘Crazy_Dan_Anderson’ posting a link to a page entitled ‘Chav Girls’ and telling users, “lots of Irish on there and it’s pretty decent.”

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of her experience, said that in her teens upon breaking up with her boyfriend he threatened to post nude photos of her, that she had previously sent him, on Facebook.

The term ‘revenge porn’ has been frequently used when describing experiences like this.

The woman said the experience was “terrifying” and that, “I felt like I was trapped and had to stay with him purely so he wouldn’t do that.”

There is legislation in place to combat the distribution of images of people without their consent and of a harmful or indecent matter under the Data Pro-

tection Acts 1988 and 2003, the Communications Regulation Amendment Act 2007 and the Non-fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 and Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994.

However, in many cases, no disciplinary action is taken unless the images are of a minor.

A new bill proposed by the Labour party would criminalise the distribution of or threatening of distribution of nude photos of someone. The bill is currently being put before the Dáil and could see some offenders incarcerated for up to seven years.

This bill could offer an opportunity for victims of ‘revenge porn’ and of pages like Reddit’s ‘Irish Sluts’ to take action in their cases.

One student who face the threat of having nude photos of them posted on Twitter and who requested anonymity, told The College View “I would die to have legislation brought in because I worry about that every day.”

Science and Health

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Explainer: turmoil at the National Children’s Hospital Catherine Gallagher Deputy News Editor @Cather_i_ne

THE National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHBD), which is responsible for the development of the National Children’s Hospital, has seen three of its board chairs resign within the past 12 years.

A single, tertiary children’s hospital in Dublin was initially proposed by the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland in 1993.

Following the publication of the McKinsey report in 2006, which recommended a single national children’s hospital, a HSE task force initially picked the Mater campus as the site of the development.

A year later, the then Minister for

Health Mary Harney subsequently established the NPHDB. Its first board chair Philip Lynch resigned in 2010, his successor John Gallagher resigned five months later. Earlier this year, Tom Costello became the third chair of NPHDB to follow suit.

An Bord Pleanála rejected planning permission in 2012 for the development on the Mater campus on the grounds it would “constitute overdevelopment.”

At this point, €35 million worth of expenditure was consequently written off.

After considerable delay, An Bord Pleanála finally granted planning permission in 2016 for the construction of the hospital on the grounds of St James’s Hospital.

Within a year, the Government approved a budget of €983 million in April of 2017. By late August of 2018,

both the Department of Health and Minister for Health Simon Harris were made aware of concerns that costs were to go up by €200 million.

Last month, the Health Committee hearing on the cost overruns heard that the build will cost €1.433 billion, €450 million more than the figure originally granted in 2017. Since then, the figure has shot up to €1.7 billion.

However, the cost escalation was only highlighted to the Taoiseach Leo Varadakr at a meeting with the Department of Health and officials from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on November 9th.

Harris told the Health Committee he made the decision to continue with the project amid the spiralling costs because “it’s so badly needed.” He added that he had three options available to him; to pause, render or continue with

GiveBlood come to DCU for first time in three years

DCU students donated their blood from the February 12th-14.

Clara Kelly Deputy Opinion Editor @Clarabkelly A THREE-DAY blood donation clinic kicked off on Tuesday, February 12th in the Venue at The U. Stephen Cousins, the national donor services manager at the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, said they were delighted to be back in DCU after a three-year absence. He said that for GiveBlood, having clinics in colleges is vital “to attract new young donors”.

He said that given only three per cent of the eligible population are active blood donors and one in four of people will need a blood transfusion at some point in their lives: “it is crucial that those who do get the importance of blood donation and have been motivated to attend, continue to do so into

the future.”

He added that: “many people who give in college might only give a few times over their college lifetime but the seed is planted,” and are more likely to then become regular blood donors.

Cousins also said that college clinics tend to be busy. “I know it’s frustrating if and when the queues are a little long, but they are key clinics in any given week and often some of the biggest clinics of the week across the whole country will be a college clinic.”

He explained that they’re for maintaining the current blood supply and that “we [GiveBlood] only ever have about seven days blood on hand nationally – and often less than that.”

He also noted typically only 45 per cent of those who try to donate give a successful donation their first time, saying: “it is absolutely crucial these donors don’t get disheartened.”

However, certain restrictions do ap-

Credit: Alison Clair

ply. According to the Irish blood transfusion service, you can’t donate blood if you have spent one or more years in the UK from 1980-1996.

And men who have had sex with another man (MSM) - even using condoms or PrEP - must have a one year abstinence period before being able to donate blood. Before January 2017, this was previously a lifetime ban.

Females who have had sex with an MSM must also wait the same abstinence period to be able to donate.

Dean O’Reilly, chairperson of DCU LGBTA society said: “It’s truly unfortunate that men who have sex with men continue to be disallowed to donate blood without a one year abstinence period.”

He added that: “Despite other countries shortening or even out-right abolishing the ban, Ireland continues to allow homophobic policy to govern practice.”

Tensions over the expenditure of the new Children’s Hospital has caused outrage and resulted in people protesting outside Minister for Health Simon Harris’s home where he lives with his wife and 3 week old baby.

Credit: Wikipedia

the undertaking.

Appearing before an Oireachtas committee on February 5th, Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said it would have been “helpful” to have been kept updated with the development of the cost

overruns.

The Taoiseach has confirmed that the Department of Health has secured PWC, an expert accountancy and consultancy firm to undertake an analysis of the situation. It is believed the review will be completed in March.

Tadgh McNally Contributor @thecollegeview

The college has had trouble in the past when it has looked to become a university, mainly because it is seen as a private institution. However, the college argues that it is a public institution, comparing its statutory status to Trinity College.

Other problems that have plagued the RCSI are the fact that staff are not paid by the state, as well as government reluctance to create too many universities across the country.

Although the RCSI can’t call itself a university in Ireland, it may do so outside of Ireland after an amendment to the Education Act in 2015. However, it opts not to do this to avoid confusion abroad.

The college itself has around 3,500 students and is based on St Stephen’s Green. Earlier this year, it opened a medical education building on York Street worth €80 million, which is the largest of its kind in Europe.

The RCSI is one of the oldest colleges in Ireland, as it was established back in 1784. Before being a college, it was a guild known as the Guild of St Mary Magdelene.

It was incorporated by royal decree

by Henry VI, and thus it actually became the first medical corporation in Britain or Ireland.

The College View reached out to the Royal College of Surgeons, but they declined to comment.

Royal College of Surgeons to become Ireland’s newest university THE Royal College of Surgeons Ireland looks likely to become Ireland’s next university, due to legislation that is passing through the Oireachtas.

The RSCI, who have lobbied the government in recent months to enact this change, would become Ireland’s eighth university, only weeks after the creation of Technological University Dublin.

This change has been long requested by the college as they believe that if they were made a university, it would help them attract more international students - as well as increasing its reputation within Ireland, according to the Irish Times.

The legislation, which is known as the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) (Amendment) Bill, is currently being passed through the Seanad. This bill will allow the RCSI to be judged on whether it meets the criteria for becoming a university.

An amendment is planned to be introduced by Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor to allow for the RCSI to achieve university status. The amendment would be drafted where a precedent would not be created for other colleges to follow.

RCSI would be Ireland’s eighth university if the legislation passed.

Credit: Flickr

Science and Health

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Pharmacies are spreading the love by giving out free condoms Mikey Walsh Deputy Images Editor @Walshy_mikey

CAREPLUS pharmacies gave away at least 10,000 free condoms in the days surrounding Valentine’s Day to “help promote a culture of safe sex” and highlight the higher VAT rate condoms are subject to.

The pharmacy chain gave away Durex condoms in packs of three with information leaflets highlighting the importance of safe sex and contraceptives.

The Health Protection Surveillance Unit of the HSE released figures that show rates of chlamydia, herpes simplex and gonorrhoea are on the increase.

There is no limit to the number of condoms anyone can take and are available from the counter. A spokesman for the company, which has over 60 stores nationwide, said that if stocks run out then they will be replenished if necessary.

In an effort to promote safe sex, pharmacies were giving out free condoms before nd after Valentines Day.

Condoms are counted as a luxury item and are subject to the higher VAT rate with a box of 12 costing up to €20 which is considered too expensive for younger people by many health groups.

DCU awarded funding for STEM research Beibhinn Thorsch Deputy Lifestyle Editor @BeibhinnJourno

DCU has been awarded a total of €340,000 by Science Foundation Ireland.

The awards were made under the government funded Technological Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme, which supports developments in STEM research with strong potential for economic impact.

DCU President Briain MacCraith said that the university is “research intensive”, and said the award is a “significant boost for DCU researchers… the funding will enable them to accelerate their research towards the realisation of its full potential”.

Announced on February 7th, the university was awarded the funding for its innovations in cancer and cellular research, which are said to have excellent potential for commercial application across pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Three research projects in DCU will be funded by this award. Prof Martin Clynes has received €128,422 of the award for a project exploring a new anti-cancer drug, Dr Aisling Byrne is spearheading a project to allow monitoring of cell health - this project is valued at €121,279. Dr Criena Slator is the final leader of a project, which is worth €96,767 to develop new types of anticancer agents.

The National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology is a research institute in

DCU campus, researching fundamental and applied cellular biotechnology, molecular cell biology, ocular diseased, and biological chemistry.

DCU’s Biomedical Diagnostics Institute have made significant breakthroughs in cancer research previously, with researchers making two discoveries in identifying the early signs of bowel cancer, which is the second most common cause of cancer death in Ireland. The university has also received TIDA funding previously, in 2013, when they were awarded €1.4 million in total.

Funding for cancer research projects has previously made enormous impacts on those in the field, for example, Dr. Gregor Kijank of the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute in DCU, who said that the Irish Cancer Society Research fellowship has allowed him to translate his research “from bench to bedside”.

The impact of the research being funded once it reaches the Irish people is huge.

However, there are still many miles to go in the ways of cancer research, with the Irish Cancer Society saying that the race to find better ways to detect, treat, and prevent cancer is a “marathon, not a sprint”.

The TIDA programme aims to demonstrate how innovative ideas for commercial benefit can be achieved.

The programme also provides project funding and training in innovation and entrepreneurship skills in third level institutions.

Commercial director for CarePlus Pharmacy, Niamh Lynch said: “Given the impact that STIs can have on people, it’s clear that price should not be a barrier to safe sex.

Credit: Alison Clair

If we can draw attention to the matter by distributing free condoms this week, hopefully it might give rise to a discussion about whether they are still a luxury item in 2019.”

The government already reduced the VAT on condoms in 2008 from 21 per cent to 13.5 per cent.

The Irish Pharmacy Union says that the government should eliminate VAT on contraceptives to make them more affordable and accessible.

“There is currently a VAT rate of 13.5 per cent on condoms, which is counterproductive and goes against these ambitions. This is essentially a tax on safe sex,” said pharmacist and IPU member Catriona O’Riordan.

According to Sexualwellbeing.ie, condoms have a 98 per cent effective rate and are one of the best forms of contraceptive.

The rate of STI’s in Ireland increased by 5 per cent in 2017 with 7408 cases of chlamydia being recorded that same year. 15-24-year-olds account for 51 per cent of chlamydia cases.

Student David O’Beirne said “condoms are too expensive. Abroad they have been much more accessible for young people. They are not a luxury, they are a necessity and financial situation shouldn’t be a barrier to having

Leaving Cert results in risk to physical health, according to DCU professor

A DCU professor stated that student’s physical health is at risk as they compete for high CAO points in the Leaving Certificate.

Dave Kelly Sub Editor @Dave_Kelly__ THE Leaving Certificate is putting the long-term health of students at risk as physical fitness is sacrificed for exam preparation, according to health and fitness expert Professor Niall Moyna.

A recent study has demonstrated a steep decline in fitness levels among secondary school students, particularly girls, after the age of 15. Prof Moyna attributes this decline to the clamour for CAO points that characterises the Leaving Certificate.

“We are seeing a direct link between the drop in participation and the increasing number of children aged from 16 to 18 years not meeting the minimum level of fitness required for optimal health,” Prof Moyna, who specialises in clinical exercise physiology at DCU, told the Irish Independent.

This trend is evident from transi-

tion year onwards, with Prof Moyna explaining that parents do not seem to be aware of the relationship between childhood fitness and long-term health.

He rebutted the idea that prioritising study over exercise improves exam results.

He provided a 2014 study that tracked the fitness levels of over 80,000 students across five years. It found that children who partook in physical activities had better academic performances than those who didn’t. They also had increased concentration and reduced stress levels.

“A school that thinks there is something more important than children’s health- I would be very interested in talking to that principal,” he said.

Prof Moyna oversees the annual Irish Life Health Schools’ Fitness Challenge, the largest national surveillance study on the fitness of 13 to 18-yearolds. Last September, 185 schools and 24,167 teen students signed up for the

Credit: Alison Clair

challenge.

However, while 9,000 13-year-olds took part, only 1,300 17-year-olds got involved. Prof Moyna said that seven years of data have allowed them to analyse the trends in this data, and the biggest concern is this age discrepancy.

“This is a major national issue, and the big question is why are schools and parents letting this happen? Instead of managing health implications as they arise, we should be trying to prevent them.”

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Ireland, and is associated with an increased risk of dementia.

Prof Moyna has called for continuous assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness to be mandatory in secondary school.

Furthermore, the number of CAO applications has increased this year, with more than 73,000 people applying for university. This is an increase of just over 400 applications.

Business and Tech

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DCU awarded €2m in Innovation and Transformation Fund Orla Dwyer Opinions Editor @orladwyer_

OVER €2 million is being awarded to DCU from the Department of Education for learning and engagement projects.

Roughly €1.3 million is being awarded to DCU online learning while a further €705,000 will be used to create a model of student engagement and development for students. The total fund is €23 million for 22 projects across 23 education facilities.

“This €23 million fund is being used to reward and support higher education institutions that are coming up with innovative ideas to attract people to third level and those that are doing more to create flexible options for learning,” said Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh.

This investment is part of the new Innovation and Transformation Fund. The figures were announced on February 8th by McHugh and Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor.

The largest proportion of the funding, €2.9 million, was allocated to the Irish Universities Association and DCU will

benefit from this.

DCU, along with six other universities, will have staff development programmes to enhance the digital confidence skills of lecturers.

The fund was initially launched in 2018. Many third level institutions will be partnering with organisations such as An Cosán, Family Carers Ireland and the Disability Federation of Ireland.

DCU’s projects are not in collaboration with other organisations.

Some projects will focus on developing digital systems to enable more flexible learning through online options and simulation training.

Maynooth University will receive €1.45 million to enhance the employability of their graduates.

“Innovation and discovery is what our higher education institutions do best – and this fund will enable them to invest in new ideas to improve students’ experiences, enhance student learning and harness technology and new thinking for the benefit of our current and future students,” said Mitchell O’Connor.

According to Mitchell O’Connor, investment in higher education has increased by more than €250 million since 2016 to a total of over €1.7 billion.

Other projects focus on student

Credit: Wikipedia

mental health, supporting entrepreneurs and startups, student retention and leadership.

A call for proposals was made in 2018 for projects and applications were assessed by an independent panel.

McHugh said that these education initiatives will create new opportunities within Ireland’s education system. He

claimed it would help to position the system as a “leader in inclusiveness, diversity and flexible models of education and lifelong learning”.

Mitchell O’Connor added that this funding will focus on finding new pathways and methods of teaching for students from a wide range of backgrounds. She said it will help

students to develop as individuals, address student retention and support student progression across higher education institutions.

“It is a real investment in our education system and in our students,” added Mitchell O’Connor.

The funding will be allocated to the 22 projects up until 2021.

Kinzen app from ex-Storyful chiefs and DCU alumni goes live Richard Herlihy Contributor @thecollegeview A new Dublin-headquartered app bidding to disrupt online news launched on iPhone devices on February 7th.

Kinzen was formed by Storyful founder Mark Little and former Storyful managing editor and DCU alumnus Áine Kerr in 2018 to help put users “in control” of their daily news routine.

“The positive response to the features of the app has been overwhelming, in the most positive way possible,” Little told The College View. “Our goal was to show straight away how easy it was for people to take control of their news routine and that has really resonated.”

The app pairs personalisation with an ad-free model powered by artificial intelligence and community curators in return for a monthly fee.

“No one needs more news. What we desperately need is a more productive experience of news,” wrote Little, a former RTÉ journalist and Twitter Ireland boss, in a Medium post announcing Kinzen’s launch.

He argues that tools already exist to regulate sleep, exercise, and mental health. “There are apps for all of that, offering pathways to daily habits that add value to our life.”

“Why not news?”

The launch comes as Apple also announced its own subscription ‘Netflix for news’ app which will see a 50/50 revenue split with news publishers. While Kinzen is currently

Kinzen boldly promises not to “harvest [members’] browsing histories” and to free users from “echo chambers of their social networks”.

free to download, the basic version comes with limits, and the full range of Premium features will set users back €4.99/month or €49.99/year.

Kinzen is joining a crowded marketplace in which, apart from social platforms, several apps already provide personalised news such as Nuzzle, Flipboard, and those of news publishers.

Though Kinzen is only available on iOS, the creators are promising an

Android version within six months of 2019.

Kerr, Kinzen’s Chief Operating Officer and a graduate of DCU’s MA in Journalism programme, told Silicon Republic that her experiences at Facebook played a role in the creation of Kinzen.

One particular concern was research suggesting that many consumers feel “worn out” by the news cycle and concerns over advertising and privacy.

Credit: Richard Herlihy

By contrast, Kinzen boldly promises not to “harvest [members’] browsing histories” and to free users from “echo chambers of their social networks”.

Dr Dawn Wheatley, an Assistant Professor at DCU’s School of Communications, told The College View that Kinzen “has the potential to be a really great service”.

“I think the kind of user it will attract are those who really want to stay up-to-date on content from a

wide range of sources, but sometimes feel overwhelmed and unsure of what sources they can trust,” said Wheatley.

A key challenge for Kinzen, Wheatley said, is whether or not the app will show users content that they would not normally seek out. “There is a risk that it further diminishes that opportunity for serendipitous discovery, which I think can be a real shame in this hyper-customised online environment we exist in.”

Head of UCD’s School of Information and Communication Studies Dr Eugenia Siapera, said that a slew of factors are creating demand for such an app. She points to issues like information overload, personalised news feeds controlled by opaque algorithms, and concerns over accuracy.

“Most [people] feel very put off by adverts [...] they consider harvesting their personal data is at best annoying and at worst exploitative,” she said.

And unlike in an earlier era, Siapera said the market has now “matured with more and more people used to paying for services online through subscriptions, such as for example Spotify and Netflix”.

However, Siapera suggests a final note of caution: “On the other hand, hyper-personalised news apps such as Kinzen risk the fragmentation of the public sphere into even more fragments.”

She added that paid news services might cause further inequality between those able to “afford high quality news and information and those who are not and who may therefore become misinformed.”

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Migrants and tech workers team up for start up businesses Orla Dwyer Opinion Editor @orladwyer_ MIGRANTS and technology workers will be collaborating to develop business ideas at a startup weekend in Dublin from March 8th-10th.

People living in direct provision and other migrants will be working with developers, designers and mentors to develop ideas for startups. Entrants will have 54 hours to come up with an idea and built a prototype for the product.

Techstars says their goal for the weekend is to “create a healthy environment where entrepreneurs from a non-traditional background can create, collaborate and build firm contacts in the Irish business scene”.

Techstars, an international business accelerator programme, has teamed up with the Dublin City Council and the Dublin Local Enterprise Office for the weekend. It is also in partner with the Dublin Tech Summit and Techfugees.

“We are very pleased to support this event as it will help to highlight and encourage diversity, inclusion, innovation and entrepreneurship in Dublin which

Emma Nevin Contributor @thecollegeview

Participants will have the chance to develop a new idea to present to the start up weekend

are key areas that we seek to assist in through policy, programmes and various supports,” Greg Swift, Head of Economic Development and Enterprise at the Local Enterprise Office Dublin City, told the Irish Times.

The overall winner of the event will get two months of coworking space in Dublin, a place on a business course from the Local Enterprise Office and mentor time with investors.

Other prizes include exhibition space at the Dublin Tech Summit, a space on the event’s Scale X programme and a

recognition prize for Techfugees.

Bank of Ireland’s former entrepreneur in residence Gene Murphy and David Watters from the Dublin Tech Summit will be speaking over the weekend.

Judges include activist Ellie Kisyombe, Nicholas Henderson from the Irish Refugee Council and Máirín Murray from Tech For Good.

Entrants will be asked to develop a prototype for their idea over the weekend and it should not be something they have already worked on.

Student tickets (€12) and free tickets

Credit:Wikipedia

for those living in Direct Provision are currently sold out while ticket prices for designers, developers and businesses start from €25 for the weekend.

The ticket includes seven meals, discounts from partners and unlimited internet and coffee.

The weekend begins at 6pm on Friday, March 8th and ends with a wrap up at 7pm on March 10th. This development follows on from a Techstars and Dublin City Council collaboration for a week of events last November.

Minister encourages STEM entries for Scifest 2019 James Nolan Production Editor @JamesNolan97

MINISTER for Education Joe McHugh has called on second-level students in Ireland to put their science, technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) skills to the test as he launched SciFest’s call for entries for its 12th annual SciFest College competition.

The competition, which has seen 60,000 students participate since its launch in 2008, is the largest second level STEM fair in Ireland and it aims to give students of all abilities and backgrounds the opportunity to develop research, problem solving, critical thinking and presentation skills.

Minister McHugh was full of praise for the competition as he emphasised the importance of STEM and urged students to consider entering.

“SciFest is a fantastic competition.

As a government, we are committed to promoting young people’s involvement in this area. An event like SciFest gets young people engaged in STEM subjects and in research and innovation.”

“It drives interest and gives them a great opportunity to explore ideas and develop their skills outside their studies.

I also want to thank the third level institutions for hosting events and I would like to congratulate everyone else who gets involved, as well as the team from SciFest that makes it all happen,” added McHugh.

Business and Tech NCRC research in neuroblastoma awarded for technology innovation

SciFest is the largest second level STEM fair in Ireland

While speaking at the launch of SciFest 2019 at the Technological University in Dublin, SciFest founder and CEO Shelia Porter emphasised her joy at what the competition has become while looking forward to further growth this year.

“SciFest has now been running for 11 years and 2019 will mark our 12th year of the competition. I couldn’t be happier at what the competition has become and just how many second level students are now showcasing their interest in STEM.” “Last year over 10,000 students participated across the country and I look

forward to seeing how much the competition grows this year,” said Porter.

Interim Director of Science Foundation Ireland, Margie McCarthy, wished the competition further success this year, stating that Science Foundation Ireland is delighted to backing such an initiative.

“SciFest is a terrific initiative that enables over 10,000 school students to grow their knowledge and passion for STEM. Science Foundation Ireland is delighted to support this nationwide initiative since its inception through our SFI Discover Programme. We are delighted to see SciFest grow year on year and

Credit: alamy.com

hope that 2019 is another hugely successful year for them,” said McCarthy.

Excitement for the competition is also growing amongst students who have a passion for STEM. Second level student Lucy Smith hopes for her school to get involved.

“I hope to get involved with my school as I think it is a great way for us to get involved in subjects like science and engineering and it is always an added bonus to able to work outside of the classroom for a few hours every week,” said Smith.

The closing date for entries to SciFest 2019 is Friday, March 8th.

A NATIONAL Children's Research Centre project in Neuroblastoma research won the award for Technology Innovation on February 7th.

Dr. Olga Piskareva received an SFI TIDA (Science Foundation Ireland’s Technology Innovation Development Award) for her extensive research on Neuroblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer tumour that begins in the nerve tissues of infants and very young children. It affects an average of 10 Irish children a year.

This type of cancer begins in certain early forms of nerve cells, most often found in an embryo or fetus and it varies in how quickly or slowly it can develop. Occasionally, in cases of very young children, the cancer cells can die without treatment and the tumour disappears on its own.

Neuroblastoma is the most common cancer that affects infants and is the third most common type of cancer in children after leukemia and brain cancer. Neuroblastoma accounts for 15% of yearly cancer deaths in children worldwide.

D.r Piskareva's research is funded

by CMRF Crumlin, who said that the award is a testimony to the high standard of research excellence facilitated at the NCRC. The award of over €128,000 will allow her to continue researching neuroblastoma.

Dr. Piskareva is also a leading childhood cancer researcher at the Royal College of Surgeon's Ireland. She was part of the team of scientists there who, earlier this year, created a new 3D approach for examining the way cancer cells develop and grow.

Their argument is that the closer you get to mimicking the real environment cancer cells grow in the human body, the more likely developing drugs are to be successful. The usual 2D models used to test cancer treatments are not as effective because they lack the real height, width and depth of the human body.

By the time these drugs are tested on animals, they usually fail because an animal cell environment is completely different to the flat surface they were originally tested on. Dr Piskareva's lab in the RCSI developed a model more close to the environment cells usually live in.

Commenting on her new 3D model, Dr Piskareva said, “The development and approval of new oncology drugs are very slow processes. This is mainly due to the big differences in the physiology of cancer cells grown on plastic and in native microenvironment."

"This proposal aims to develop a tissue-engineered tumour model that can be used in testing new drugs and new combinations of existing drugs," she said.

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opinion Ode from a student nurse: stand with nurses and midwives

Student nurses need to be provided with a reason to stay working in Ireland, writes first-year Intellectual Disability Nursing student in DCU Ciarán Mac an tSaoir.

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Ciarán Mac an Tsaoir Contributor @thecollegeview

he Irish public healthcare system has been in a crisis for quite some time now.

The HSE has been chronically haemorrhaging newly graduated nurses to services abroad for years now, to the point that there are four nursing jobs available for every qualified nurse seeking work.

This had led to unacceptable staffing levels which is dangerous for those under the care of these services and has led to horrific working conditions for our nurses. It’s time we realise the impact that this has had on student nurses, both on our education and on the reality of our future within the Irish healthcare system. It’s time for people to realise that this affects every student in DCU. It’s time people learned how to do something about it and to stop leaving us behind.

DCU has been one of the education facilities at the forefront for bringing nurses to degree level for decades. Between General, Mental Health, Intellectual Disability, Children’s Nursing and a multitude of post-graduate opportunities for nurses, DCU can proudly lay claim to a large community of student nurses.

The Nursing & Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) has very strict standards and, as a result, all who successfully graduate are entering a competitive international market which values qualified, English-speaking nurses.

Ireland, despite educating some of the best nurses in the world, is failing to keep up with this market. As a result, we’re losing our nurses to other countries en masse.

We simply don’t have enough nurses in Ireland and this has created an unsafe environment for everybody, including students. This environment is not safe for learning and has been putting both the physical and mental health of our student nurses at risk for years now.

The recent and ongoing action being undertaken by our nursing unions, namely the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), has aimed to improve these conditions.

The root of this issue is nurses are paid around €7,000 less than other degree level healthcare professionals, according to the General Secretary of the INMO. This pay is particularly poor for our brand new, fresh-out-of-the-oven

college graduates, who simply cannot afford to stay in Ireland. Now, imagine that you’ve studied for four to four-and-a-half years (depending on if you’ve studied Children’s and General Nursing) to enter a profession where you regularly work 12-hour shifts.

Then you work seven consecutive 12hour night shifts in a row, while also working on holidays, such as Christmas, and then throw in extremely unequal pay. Would you stick about?

Our nurses are leaving because they have fair pay and better working conditions abroad, which we need to provide in Ireland to have a chance of retaining them. The government has to provide us with a reason to stay.

The effect that these conditions has had on us student nurses here in Ire-

“

They were not striking for the good of their health. They were striking for the good of yours.

Several strikes for nurses, midwives and other medical staff have been held so far in 2019.

land cannot be understated. For student nurses in Ireland to register as a nurse in their discipline, we must undertake a minimum of 2,300 hours of unpaid placement during our course.

Every single minute of those 2,300 hours, student nurses are being assessed on their competency in practice.

In theory, this makes sense. However, we’re allowing student nurses, such as myself, to be put into areas where the staffing levels are insufficient for proper assessment.

Our nurses, for example, are being assessed on their time management in wards that, ideally, would have a 1:4 or 1:8 nurse-patient ratio. However, they’re realistically being assessed on these domains in wards that regularly have levels of one nurse to every 13

Credit: Tomekah George

patients. This is not safe for patients and it is most certainly not safe for us student nurses.

We want to learn how to care for our service users, but the reality of Ireland’s health service is that we’re not learning in ideal environments. Is today going to be the day you slip up by spending a few minutes talking to a service user instead of observing their condition and simply moving on? Will my preceptor finally get the time to sit down with me and help guide my learning?

It is stressful enough as is. But should you fail to meet one tiny subsection of the six domains of assessment during your placement, you’ll have to repeat the entire block of placement. Two weeks of placement? Four weeks? Doesn’t matter. Repeat it.

Student nurses attend placement for 39 hours per week and 100 per cent attendance is mandatory. That is a full week’s work and is non-inclusive of time spent on academic assignments, part-time work, parenting children, or any other of life’s activities.

All of this, regardless of what else is going on in our lives, has its impact on our mental and our physical health. It’s accepted as normal when we say that we sleep for an average of four-and-ahalf hours per night and we don’t bat an eyelid when we come home on the verge of tears (and quite often beyond the verge).

I, personally, cannot think of a course in DCU that puts its students through such a strong test of emotional character and I would like to be able to assume that this is a commonly known fact.

Our feelings towards the DCU community, with a particular nod to the DCU Students’ Union, are very mixed.

It’s incredibly difficult for us to feel as though we’re valued as part of the DCU community. Our Students’ Union, albeit unintentionally, has continually let us student nurses down. We always needed the support of our SU, not just when there’s national action, as these conditions aren’t new. We can only ask that each and every student in DCU, alongside the SU Executive, begins to stand with the nurses and midwives of Ireland, if they haven’t already.

They were not striking for the good of their health. They were striking for the good of yours.

Myself and my classmates, across all disciplines of nursing, are now facing the reality of being forced to emigrate for a quality of life that’s not possible here when we graduate. Help keep us in the country.

14

The dark side of posting online

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Sharing images and videos of crimes and crashes can go terribly wrong, writes Róisín Cullen.

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Róisín Cullen Chief Sub-Editor @thecollegeview

ackie Griffin died at the scene of a horrific accident on the M50 on January 24th. Everyone reacts to death differently.

Your immediate reaction might be to think of her grieving family and friends, to send flowers, condolences or perhaps to convey your deepest sympathies via a Facebook post or tweet.

However, everyone’s intentions were not as pure. Someone decided to share gruesome pictures and videos taken at the immediate aftermath of the fatal crash, completely dehumanising a fellow human being, a former friend, a young girl in a class picture hanging on somebody’s wall.

The fact that someone’s immediate concern was sharing this content on social media, brings our attention to the darkest side of human nature. It reminds us that there is always going to be a minority on this planet that will make us wonder if there is any sense of morality left in this world we live in, or is the line between right and wrong blurred between WhatsApp group chats and snap streaks.

As a race we have always been inclined towards the gruesome, the shocking, the macabre side of nature.

Blood curdling tales that give us a sense of catharsis, a feeling of “well, at

least it didn’t happen to me”. We are enthralled by horror stories that occur far away from our front doors and bear no burden on the people that we could not live without.

We spend hours devouring detailed series about easily avoided child abductions and ‘sexy’ mass murderers.

Television has a watershed. Reporters have guidelines set down by the law.

Social Media has little to no boundaries due to it being a relatively new addition to our day to day lives. An ISIS beheading can be viewed by a young

boy in Bray. Vicious rumours and career damning accusations can be shared in meme format.

Adults can or should be able to tell the difference between what is right and wrong and strive to only share appropriate content without the threat of the law or the offer of a carrot but it is the youngest members of our society that are the most susceptible to the dark side of social media. The security of friendship and social acceptance can often cause people to turn a blind eye to something they know is morally

Images and videos of the M50 Finglas crash were posted online.

wrong- as was the case with a sixthyear student that would prefer not to be named.

“I was once invited to this private story by some anonymous person made on Snapchat and they would get a requested name from someone and post what they thought about that person,” the student said.

“My name was mentioned a few times and they would say really mean things. I could’ve left it, but I was so obsessed with what people thought of me,” they added.

Credit: Shutterstock

Damning accusations can be shared in meme format We post things without even thinking about them. We share videos of our friend drunkenly describing their undying love for Dermot Bannon without batting an eyelid. Prospective Medicine student Jason Dowling explains that this can quickly step inside the realm of being morally wrong.

“If somebody posts a dodgy photo from a night out it can be quite detrimental,” said Dowling.

Laws need to be introduced to catch up with changing times. As a society, we need to draw a line between what is entertainment and what is evil. While the vast majority of people do not need a carrot or a stick, the promise of a heaven or a threat of hell there will always be a minority that will push boundaries in the selfish hope of viral fame. These people will only be deterred by concrete rules and penalties.

The ethical ambiguity of awareness challenges Aoife Horan discusses her mixed feelings on the recent DCUSU challenge to live on an asylum seeker’s weekly allowance.

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Aoife Horan Contributor @thecollegeview

uring any university awareness week or campaign, there comes a merky feeling of discomfort and unease when your hard-working, kind and generally well-meaning Students’ Union takes on some form a challenge, be it financial, physical or otherwise to highlight the plight of fellow students on campuses less fortunate than themselves.

Members of DCUSU took on the challenge at the beginning of the semester of living on €38.30 a week, the weekly allowance of an Asylum Seeker in Ireland. This challenge was taken on by four SU members of staff as part of DCU’s Refugee Week which is part of its commitments as a University of Sanctuary.

However, €38.30 is not even the budget of an asylum seeker in Ireland, at least not until March, it still currently sits at €21.60 and considering there are 42 University of Sanctuary students

in our university, there are 42 students living in direct provision under these budgetary constraints.

Surely, the most plausible thing to do would be to pass the mic and hand their various social media platforms over to our University of Sanctuary students to talk about what it’s like being in direct provision and attending university here.

A similar ethical questioning sprang to my mind when, in Trinity College, a university student led charity Disability & I set up a wheelchair challenge in 2017, 24-hours of mobile people trying to access their campus in Weekly allowance of an asylum seeker.

wheelchairs. Surely as opposed to placing yourself in the shoes of someone with a physical disability, you could instead allow someone with said physical impairments to speak on it themselves?

It seems a difficult question to ask and perhaps it seems hyperbolic to find this a source of unease but in taking on challenges of the disenfranchised as opposed to giving a voice to those people, knowing you can, at the end of the day, week, or however long you’ve set yourself, go back to spending with comfort, or you can go back to standing up. Your charade of vulnerabiliCredit: Carrie McMullan

ty goes away and you can continue in your position of privilege.

“The most important thing we can do at the moment is get people talking and if actually it’s one person turning to their mate who doesn’t know much about direct provision calling the SU President an a***hole for making a mockery of the whole system so be it, that person has still heard about the atrocities,” explained DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke when I questioned him on the ethical ambiguity of the challenge at hand.

While it is wholeheartedly true that the more people who understand the issues faced by those in direct provision, the better, the question for me ends up being: “Is it enough to make people aware?”

In choosing this kind of challenge as opposed to handing your platforms over, there is a missed opportunity to share the spotlight with the people you’re trying to help and give a voice to. Share your platforms, pass the mic.

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gaeilge

Léirmheas ar ‘Craic Baby’ le Darach Ó Séaghdha Tugann Lauren Ní Chatháin léirmheas dúinn ar an gcéad leabhair eile sa sraith ‘Motherfocló ir’

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Lauren Ní Chatháin Scríbhneoir @thecollegeview

críobh Darach Ó Séaghdha, an t-údar do Motherfoclóir, Craic Baby ,i 2018. Cosúil le Motherfoclóir, is treoir éadroim é faoin Ghaeilge, a taithí ag foghlaim Gaeilge agus conas a dhéanann an fada difríocht mhór.

Mar shampla, ar an gclúdach, deir sé “Gráín = Cuddle, Gráin = hatred”.

Foilsíodh Motherfoclóir i 2017 agus bhuaigh sé gradam neamhfhicsean móréileamh sa bhliain chéanna, ach thosaigh an cultas seo i bhfad sular dtáinig an leabhar seo amach.

“Craic Baby picks up exactly where Motherfoclóir left off. It explores the very new and very old parts of the Irish Language from a personal perspective.

While my first book was steeped in memory and a father-son relationship, this one hinges on the beginning of a father-daughter relationship and how watching a child learn to communicate changes how you think about language.” [l. 7, Craic Baby] Nuair a léigh mé an t-alt seo, bhí mé ag tnúth go mór leis an leabhar a léamh, mar bhí tionchar mór ag Motherfoclóir ar mo mheon i leith Gaeilge a staidéar san ollscoil agus gairm a fháil trí mheán Gaeilge.

Ní raibh saghas bráca a thuilleadh í a labhairt agus a úsáid gach lá. Ar an gcéad leathanach, tá Darach ag caint go hachomair faoin meon ag daoine i leith na Gaeilge le blianta - go bhfuil sí “useless and pointless”.

Bhunaidh Ó Séaghdha an próifíl The Irish For (@theirishfor) i mí Eanáir 2015. Leanann daoine cosúil le Dara Ó Briain, Ed Byrne, Amy Huberman, Gerry Adams, Gráinne Seoige, Colm O’Gorman agus, ar ndóigh, Rubberbandits.

Tá an leathanach seo thar a bheith greannmhar agus beagáinín soibálta!

Mar shampla, dúirt @ismisenaomi “I’ve made the rookie mistake of not having any wine in the house ... it’s a Saturday night. I’ve failed miserably” agus d’fhreagar Darach Ó Séaghdha le “The Irish for emergency is éigeandáil”. Cuireann sé béarlagair agus gnáth-ghaeilge a úsáidimid gach lá.

Dar leis an beathaisnéis sa leabhar Craic Baby le Darach Ó Séaghdha, tá sé ina chónaí i Sord lena bean chéile Erin, a hiníon óg Lasairíona agus a naíonán nuabheirthe Art! Is as an Tuaisceart na hÉireann í Erin agus mar sin, tá cúpla barúil ag Darach faoi Bhreatimeacht, go háirithe tar éis rugadh Lasairíona, toisc go mbeadh teorainn idir í agus a seanthuismitheoirí!

Freisin, tá sé buartha faoin ngeilleagar na hÉireann le Breatimeacht - má d’fhulaingeodh an geilleagar, an laghdóidís an maoiniú do pháistí cosúil le Lasairíona - páistí le siondróm Down?

I gcaibidil a haon sa Craic Baby, is

Craic Baby le Darach Ó Séaghdha

léir go bhfuil sé ag iarraidh feachtas leis a chur eolas ar siondróm Down – á threorú é mar “a different kind of normal” (maith an fear, a Dharach) Tá 77 eagrán sa phodchraolta darbh ainm Motherfoclóir freisin. Bíonn Darach agus a haoichainteoirí ag caint faoin teanga mar iomlán, Bunreacht na hÉireann, cúrsaí polaitíochta maidir leis an teanga,stair na hÉireann, canúintí agus a lán ábhair eile.

San eagrán is déanaí, bhí Darach in easnaimh (mar tá leanbh nua aige, Comhghairdeas!) agus bhí Gearóidín McEvoy, Peadar Ó Caomhánaigh, Eimear Duffy agus Brianna Parkins ag plé an difear idir Éire agus An Astráil, go háirithe an ghrá ag na hÉireannaigh do Home and Away agus Neighbours, béarlagair Éireannach agus béarlagair Astrálach, agus an difear idir spórt anseo agus spórt san Astráil, conas a bhain Brianna úsáid as a hardán chun feachtas a dhéanamh do ghinmhilleadh

Credit: National Gallery

dlíthiúil. Bíonn siad ag caint faoin ranganna Gaeilge ar Duolingo, múineadh le Eimear Duffy! “ Your ex – the one who doesn’t like you as much as you like them and knows it – sends a “you up?” text at 11.32pm. Should you not pick up the phone… or, instead of replying, why not practice your Irish on Duolingo in-

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Ba sholas é sin dom agus d’aon duine a léigh an píosa seo.

stead?”

Sa leathanach caibidil i gCraic Baby is iad Normal People, New Words, Multilingual Children, Language, Neologisms an Power, Hiberno-English, Computer Languages and Irish, Old Irish, Older Irish and Sengoídelc, Fantasy Island agus Brehon Law, Bunreacht Law. So seo é na hábhair a bheifeá ag foghlaim má léann tú an leabhar seo (léadh sé leaids, déan é). An chaibidil ba shuimiúla dar liomsa ná an ceann faoi Bhéarla na hÉireann. Tá foclóir ar fáil faoi gach leagan den Béarla san “Anglosphere” ach, níl aon fhoclóir ar fáil do Bhéarla na hÉireann.

Mhínigh Darach téarmaí atá ar fáil i mBéarla agus i mBéarla na hÉireann ar nós craic, grand, article, after, now/ sure, lads, himself agus a lán téarmaí eile (an cheann faoi Prod/Jaysus - nílim in ann é a mhilleadh, tá sé ró greannmhar mar is míniúcháin dáiríre é).

Is leabhar pearsanta é Craic Baby, tá Darach ag insint a scéal féin agus a gaol leis an teanga. Tá an chaibidil is pearsanta sa leabhar ná an chríoch.

Sa chéad alt, tá sé ag caint faoin na bomaití suaimhneach leis a hiníon sna hoíche agus úsáideann sé an frása “réim-chion” chun cur síos a dhéanamh ar na bomaití.

Ach an t-alt is fearr ná an alt deireanach: “The only way to beat the comparing game is to stand back - way back - and look at how far you’ve come and who’s joined you along the way. Nothing compares to that.”

Ba sholas é sin dom agus d’aon duine a léigh an píosa seo. Sa lá atá inniu ann táimid ag déanamh comparáid idir sinn féin agus gach duine a thagann orainn gach lá.

Cuireann an t-alt seo suaimhneas orm agus cuireann sé gach rud a fheiceáil sa cheart. Má tá seans agat, LÉIGH AN LEABHAR SEO.

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Tá Seachtain Na Gaeilge 2019 ag teacht Insíonn Ruairí Egan dúinn céard a bheidh ar siúl i mbliana

Ruairí Mac Aodhagáin Scríbhneoir @thecollegeview

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íonn Seachtain na Gaeilge i gcónaí ar cheann de na seachtainí is tábhachtaí agus is gnóthaí sa bhliain do Ghaeil.

Seans maith go mbíonn sé in áirithe sa bhféilire ag daoine cúpla mí roimh ré. Is beag am sa bhliain ina mbíonn an Ghaeilge níos so-fheicthe nó go mbíonn sceitimíní chomh mór sin orthu siúd a labhraíonn é.

Ritheann Seachtain na Gaeilge gach bliain ó 1-17 Márta, an choicís roimh Lá Fhéile Pádraig. Bíonn imeachtaí ar siúl go náisiúnta agus bíonn chuile dhuine i saol na Gaeilge le feiceáil áit éigin, más láithreoir teilifíse ag cur agallamh ar stáitse, scríbhneoir ag déanamh ceardlanna scríbhneoireachta, nó fiú do DJ Raidió na Gaeltachta áitiúil ag ithe brioscaí ag maidin chaife.

Ní haon difríocht é 2019, le hAmbasadóirí Sheachtain na Gaeilge 2019 fógratha; láithreoir 2FM Tracy Clifford agus peileadóir Átha Cliath Michael Daragh Macauley ina measc. An jab a bheidh acu ná freastal ar na himeachtaí, an fhéile a chur chun cinn trí labhairt ar phainéal cainte, scéal a scaipeadh ar na meáin sóisialta agus bheith ag gníomhú leis an bpobal trí labhairt na Gaeilge.

Níor thosaigh an fhéile go fóill i

SnaG

mbliana ach is léir go bhfuil rogha láidir Ambasadóirí roghaithe i mbliana; ar an bpainéal chomh maith tá Sibéal Ní Chaiside, a bheadh aithne ag daoine uirthi ó bheith ag canadh ‘Mise Éire’ mar chuid de chomóradh Éirí Amach a Cásca i 2016 agus cúpla mí ó shin, chuir Tracy a clár 2FM i láthair go dátheangach mar chuid de Bhliain na Gaeilge.

An chéad bhliain inar eagraíodh Seachtain na Gaeilge ná 1902 le seachtain amháin eagraithe. Thosaigh sé ag fás, go háirithe leis an náisiúnachas a cothaíodh san éirí amach, agus beartaíodh tamall ina dhiaidh go mairfeadh an fhéile ar feadh coicíse chun freastal ar an éileamh a bhí air.

Anois bíonn imeachtaí le fáil i ngach scoil, coláiste agus baile sa tír.

Sa bhunscoil bheadh céilí againn gach bliain agus bheadh cead againn uilig

gléasadh in éadaí glasa ar feadh an lae.

Is cuimhní cosúil le sin a chuireann Seachtain na Gaeilge i d’aigne gach bliain agus go mbíonn tú ag iarraidh páirt a ghlacadh ann.

Bíonn an ócáid seo an-tábhachtach do dhaoine a labhraíonn Gaeilge. Is é an deis is fearr é gach bliain le bheith gníomhach le Gaeilge.

Bíonn deis ag daoine le Gaeilge an teanga a úsáid níos minicí ná mar a bheadh de ghnáth agus bualadh le daoine nua a roinneann an grá sin. Bíonn ócáidí agus imeachtaí ann do gach leibhéal Gaeilge, cosúil le ranganna saor in aisce ó thosaitheoirí go cainteoirí líofa.

Má theastaíonn uait triail a bhaint as do chuid Gaeilge a úsáid, is é seo an t-am is fearr sa bhliain é a dhéanamh, bíonn imeachtaí ar siúl i ngach áit, ní gá ach iad a chuardach.

Bhí neart imeachtaí againn anseo in

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Credit: Snag.ie

Coinnigh súil ar leathanaigh na meáin sóisialta an Chumann Ghaelaigh agus an SU

DCU anuraidh mar chuid de Sheachtain na Gaeilge. Bhí Pizza & Plé, bhí DCUfm ag craoladh beo trí Ghaeilge, agus bhí Lá na Meán Sóisialta, ócáid oifigiúil de chuid Sheachtain na Gaeilge, á hóstáil sa Seomra Caidirimh le láithreoi TG4 Caitlín Nig Aoidh agus an ‘Snapchatter’ James Patrice ar an bpainéal cainte.

Beidh neart imeachtaí íontacha á eagrú arís i mbliana, a bheidh fógraithe go han-luath.

Má theastaíonn uait páirt a ghlacadh i Seachtain na Gaeilge in DCU i mbliana le haon leibhéal Gaeilge, más cupán tae a fháil nó bheith ag damhsa le do ghrá ag céilí atá ann, coinnigh súil ar leathanaigh na meáin sóisialta an Chumann Ghaelaigh agus an SU. Bígí ann.

Mallacht an damhsa

Pléann Clíona Hughes an ‘mallacht’ a bhfuil bainteach leis na cláir damhsa Hanson, cailín Wez, róthógtha le Vanessa toisc gur aithin sí go raibh a caidreamh le Wez i mbaol.

D’aithain sí go raibh Wez agus Vanessa ag réiteach go maith lena chéile agus chuaigh sí ar Instagram chun a cuid mothúcháin a roinnt leis an bpobal.

Tar éis ‘blowout’ ollmhór ar Instagram ina raibh Megan macánta faoina tuairim faoi Vanessa, thug Wez tacaíocht dí. Tar éis tamall, áfach, bhí an iomarca brú ar an gcúpla agus bhí ar Megan agus Wez scaradh óna chéile.

An scéal céanna a bhíonn ann gach uile bhliain.

Dar le Jason Gardiner, moltóir ar ‘Dancing on Ice’, tá an ‘mallacht’ a bhfuil bainteach leis an gclár i bhfad níos measa ná an cheann a bhfuil bainteach le ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.

Tarlaíonn sé bliain i ndiaidh bliain agus ní dóigh liomsa go mbeidh athrú ar an scéal seo go luath.

Clíona Hughes Eagarthóir na Gaeilge @hughescliona

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á ‘Dancing on Ice’ ar ais arís agus tá roinnt á rá go bhfuil an ‘Strictly curse’ bainteach leis an gclár seo chomh maith.

Cad í an mhallacht seo? Is í atá i gceist leis an diabhal ‘mallacht’ seo ná an t-athrú idir páirtí damhsa go páirtí rómánsach.

Tá sé seo tar éis tarlú arís agus arís eile thar na blianta agus anois bíonn daoine ag súil leis agus ar bís faoin scannal atá bainteach léi bliain i ndiaidh bliain.

I gcás roinnt dóibh, bhí siad i gcaidreamh roimh an gclár agus is í sin an fáth go mbíonn daoine chomh gafa leis an gcoincheap seo, go dtréigeann daoine na leannáin a bhí acu cheana féin chun dul le damhsóir nár chas siad leis ach seachtain ó shin.

Tá an scéal seo scannalach, caithfear a admháil. Tá na céadta daoine cáiliúil a thréig a gcuid leannáin díreach i ndiaidh na cláir damhsa seo agus téama leanúnach atá ann. Cinnte, bíonn éad i gceist.

Bíonn daoine ag damhsa go minic agus ag cleachtadh go géar lena chéile lá i ndiaidh lae agus cruthaítear éad faoi leith ina gcuid caidreamh, cé nach

Dancing on Ice

mbíonn siad ag súil le seo. Féach ar chás Brianne Delcourt agus Matt Lapinskas.

Thréig Matt a leannán, Shona Mc Garty chun dul le Brianne, an damhsóir proifisiúnta, chruthaigh sé seo stoirm sna meáin toisc go mbíonn daoine ag ceistiú an raibh caimiléireacht i gceist, gheall siad nach raibh ach cinnte go

Credit: Hello Magazine

raibh ceimic neamhoiriúnach eatarthu i rith an gcláir teilifíse.

Bhris Jake Quickendon suas lena fiancé, Danielle Fogarty agus é tar éis an bhua ar Dancing on Ice a fháil, tá patrún éigin i gceist anseo agus tá go leor ann a bhfuil lán-cinnte faoi.

Ar an gclár i mbliana tá daoine ag breathnú go géar ar Wez agus Vanessa,

a scar lena buachaill, Louis Nathaniel díreach roimh an gcéad seó. Bhí siad le chéile ar feadh dhá bhliain go leith.

Bhí daoine á cháineadh, go háirithe daoine a bhí gafa leis an gclár, Love Island, toisc go raibh daoine ar son an chúpla Megan agus Wez, a d’éirigh go maith leo le chéile ansin.

Ba léir nach raibh Megan Barton

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Tá an scéal seo scannalach

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features

Last resort: the student sofa surfing epidemic As the housing shortage in Dublin sees the rise in numbers of rough sleepers, sofa surfing has become more common among students

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Gabija Gataveckaite Features Editor @gabysayshey

asked everyone I knew and I was lucky to get couches. But some nights I was like, ‘god, I might really have to sleep in the park’.”

Oisin Terzioglu, an arts student in DCU, found himself effectively homeless last summer.

“A large network of friends really helped me when I was homeless because if I didn’t have it, I would have had to have slept on benches so many times,” he remembered.

While Terzioglu has managed to find accommodation since starting college in September, he relied on couch surfing to get himself through his repeat examinations in August 2018.

Sometimes, he was stuck.

“I went into Nubar at least twice or three times, just talking to random people and after a while I would say ‘look, I’m in a really bad situation is there any chance I could stay on the couch?’ and two random people let me stay at their family homes,” he explained.

As of November 2018, there were 9,968 people homeless in Ireland, according to the Peter McVerry Trust.

Over the last three years, figures from Focus Ireland show that the number of 18-24 year olds has increased by 78 per cent since 2016.

In February 2017, 776 young people were homeless, 7.8 per cent of the total number of people who take to the streets to sleep each night. As rents in Dublin hit all-time highs which exceed even the highest records set during the Celtic Tiger, more and more students find themselves stuck- just like Terzioglu.

In the lead up to his repeats last summer, he found himself effectively homeless after his accommodation fell through. Originally from Mayo, he didn’t open up about his situation to his parents and when his repeat exams rolled around in August, a lonely couch meant shelter for the night.

“I was staying on people’s couches but I still felt like I was a burden and so I stayed out of their houses all day,” he said.

“I had a cart from Lidl to hold my stuff and I would hide it in the corner of the library all day. I was using the library as much as I could but I wasn’t using it to study.

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The average cost of rent in Dublin is now €1,620 per month, according to The Journal.

As some of his friends would work late, Terzioglu would sometimes wait until it was late at night to finally get some rest.

“It was quite a low point in my life,” he said.

Focus Ireland is the founding member of the Irish Coalition to End Youth Homelessness, an advocacy group which combines the work of several organisations in order to tackle youth homelessness. The Coalition published a report in February, which suggests that in order to prevent homelessness among young adults, action must be taken within the rental sector.

The report states that the full rate of Jobseekers Allowance for under 26 year olds should be restored, as well as increasing the production of cost rental schemes, alongside other suggestions.

These changes may be of benefit to final year student Michael Walsh, who simply could not afford to live in Dublin while studying.

“I don’t have enough money to pay for accommodation as rent in Dublin is mad and I don’t get a grant,” he told The College View.

Walsh relies on sofa surfing to get through the typical university week.

It was quite a low point in my life

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While he has accommodation near Ashbourne, county Meath, the daily drive would take hours.

“The roads are really bad and I would be back there really late each night and if it rains at all the road is destroyed, as it’s in the middle of nowhere,” heexplained.

Credit: Sonja Tutty

For the past year and a half, he has stayed with a friend near the university.

As he has his own car, instead of paying rent, he pays her with lifts.

“It’s a given that I’ll be staying there now. I cook food and I clean up and her housemates are happy enough,” he added.

For Walsh, his car has been his saving grace, who he has named ‘Sandy’.

“I can live from my car- I usually pack for the week when I’m home at weekends because I go home to work, so I can afford to come up to Dublin.”

Not only is it an incentive for convincing friends to let him spend the night, it doubles up as a place to hold his personal belongings and even shelter.

“I have a bag of clothes in the boot with a sleeping bag. My backpack with stuff for college in it has toiletries, a toothbrush and spare socks and jocks.

“If the need arises for me to stay somewhere I always have the bag with me, it never leaves my side,” he said.

“My life revolves around that car,” he smiled.

While relying on friends for a place to bed down for the night may not sound like the ideal scenario to every

one, Walsh claimed that that the sofa surfing isn’t the hardest part.

“Last year, I had an air mattress that was blown up with a hair dryer every day and I left that in one of my friend’s houses.

“I really miss having my own placeI eat out a lot more because I don’t have a place to cook, I eat out most of the time. I can’t buy food for the week because I don’t know where I’ll stay during the week,” he added.

As rent costs in Dublin soar, homelessness has become a political football. While students surf sofas to get through the week, the lack of caps on rental costs sees wealthy landlords making fortunes from letting out sub-standard accommodation.

While they were grateful for the help offered to them, both Walsh and Terzioglu admitted that they felt like they were impeding on their friends when sleeping on the living room couch.

“I feel like I’m in the way all the time,” said Walsh.

“I don’t go into my friend’s personal space or her housemates’, I stick to my own space in the living room on the couch,” he added.

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Features

The business of voluntourism

Voluntourism, the act of going abroad and volunteering, can sometimes do more harm than good.

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Róisín Phelan Deputy News Editor @_roisinphelan

young white teen struggles to balance as swarms of clamouring black children wrap themselves around her arms and legs.

A small girl who looks no more than four years old rests her smiling head beside the face of the teen, the stick like limbs clinging around her torso.

Someone yells an order for everyone to look their way. There’s a quick, “three, two, one” and all seven small dark faces giddily turn, still holding a tight grip on the teen. There’s a bright flash and the moment is immortalised as a split second of pure joy, friendship and gratefulness forever.

The teen, named Rachel, is in Kenya, but there are many others like her across the developing world memorialising the exact same moment.

This image of poverty, and people, particularly children in need gaining joy from the presence of a Western

white teen is one which has been sold to many students across Ireland.

Volunteer tourism, or ‘voluntourism’ is the act of going abroad to volunteer. It is carried out most frequently by young, impressionable teens and adults, who want to do good. In 2015, 84 per cent of millennials who answered a survey carried out by Marrion Rewards Credit Cards from Chase said they would like to participate in voluntourism. According to research done by author Pippa Biddle, for decades voluntourism has been causing more harm than good in developing countries. Creating dependency, taking away locals’ jobs, capitalising on poverty, and causing irreversible damage to children’s abilities to have meaningful, sustained relationships.

Black, lonely, excitable children are one of the most successful selling points used by voluntourism compa-

nies.

Their faces draw thousands of people to developing countries, like Cambodia every year.

The number of orphanages in Cambodia has increased by 65 per cent since 2005. According to UNICEF, only 21 of 300 orphanages at that time were run by the state.

80 per cent of children in these institutions are not orphans but instead have either been given up, or abducted in order to create a pantomime to draw the attention of voluntourism and the supplies, and donations that come with it.

In many cases, it has been reported that children have been purposely put in deplorable conditions, and not fed, in order to gain more sympathy from Western voluntourists.

UNICEF have described this as orphanage tourism, and it is just a snippet of the damage that voluntourism is having on children.

New York based author Pippa Biddle, who took part in a voluntourism trip when she was younger, has since done immense research on the

topic and explained why she believes that voluntourism in orphanages, and schools causes irreversible damage on children’s development.

Research has shown that in order for children to develop into functioning adults, that have the ability to form long term relationships, they need their relationships with the adults in their lives to be stable when they are young.

“Even if it’s just going in and playing with kids for an afternoon that causes long term psychological damage,” she said, explaining that it is not one single person that causes the damage, but a different person playing with them everyday for their entire childhood.

She understood why so many people don’t come to the same conclusion she has about voluntourism until years after their trip because, “it’s hard to see

Credit: Róise McGagh

that damage when you’re only there for a couple days, a couple weeks, a couple months.”

For Róisín Mangan, this was certainly the case. Mangan travelled to Tanzania after finishing school and spent 6 weeks teaching English and Mathematics to children.

“I was not a qualified teacher, I had no guidance or curriculum, I taught the children what I wanted,” she said.

Mangan now works for the Nigeria INGO Forum and said she now finds it, “extremely disturbing that we send a bunch of idealistic youth, with no actual skills to go teach Africans.”

She firmly said that voluntourism “exacerbates this ‘white saviour’ complex and perpetuates the narrative of Africa with children with flies in their eyes.”

Both Biddle and Mangan agreed that voluntourism has “been around ever since mass tourism has been around,” and that it has grown in popularity over the last 30 years.

Research and statistics on the impact of voluntourism are hard to find, and for the most part inadequate.

This is because a majority of trip providers don’t carry out impact assessments and if they do, they tend to be on small sample sizes, or based the results in a single community or country.

SERVE is an organisation that claims to cause no damage to the countries it visits. It strives to instigate “sustainable development” rather than voluntourism.

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friends to catch a glimpse of themselves in the camera. Rachel and her fellow volunteer’s trip had come to an end.

we send a bunch of idealistic youth, with no actual skills, to go teach Africans

NUIG student Isabel Dwyer went to Zambia with SERVE last summer and said volunteers were taught a code of conduct, which among many things taught them to avoid taking photos which promoted a “white saviour complex” such as photos with, “lots of children from shanty towns.”

Because of her training, she believes they, “imply that African countries can’t survive without us.”

Outside of a girls rescue centre in Kenya, a little girl climbs down off of Irish student Rachel’s back. The girl runs to the photographer alongside her

Now 20-years-old, she says “the moment I got there it changed my life, and the realisation of what I had only ever seen on TV ads hit me”. She said she has made “friends for life” with the young people she met in Kenya, whom she will “cherish forever.”

She has not come to the conclusion that Pippa Biddle, Róisín Mangan and many others have.

Rachel still cherishes that photo, taken just before the children waved goodbye to her, as the next group of volunteers stepped off their plane in Kenya, ready to do some good.

Features

Could drug decriminalisation ever fly high in Ireland?

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Alongside the DCUSU elections this spring, students will be asked to vote on four referendums, one of these being the union’s stance on drug decriminalisation. to Dr Jao Goulao, one of the main drivers behind Portugal’s drug policy addiction in Portugal was “cutting across all social groups, it was not something just affecting marginalised communities”. Seventeen years later, Portugal has now the second lowest deaths due to overdose, according to the European Drug Report 2018.

Portugal isn’t the only country with decriminalisation, it is just the most radical. In a case study by CityWide, other European countries that have some form of model of drug decriminalisation implemented are Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy.

Ciara O’Loughlin Deputy Features Editor @ciara_o_lo

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CU students will be asked to vote on the Student Union’s stance on drug decriminalisation in the spring.

The referendum was initiated by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy society, who launched a petition several weeks ago.

Decriminalisation does not mean that drugs will be legally and freely available. This is legalisation, which would see the lifting or abolishment of laws banning the possession and personal use of drugs, whereas, decriminalisation would allow a small amount of drugs for personal use without getting arrested.

According to CityWide Drugs Crisis, possession of drugs for personal use made up 72 per cent of all drug offences in 2017. Decriminalisation would free up space in Irish prisons and put those caught in possession through the health-care system rather than the justice system.

Chairperson of the DCU SSDP, Declan Moore, hopes that the referendum will take place at the same time as the Student Union elections. He said that they plan to ask the SU nominees about their stance on drug decriminalisation and get DCU students talking about the issue.

“The reason we see such positive outcomes from decriminalisation is because it is essentially another form of harm reduction,” he said.

However, he also explained that simply decriminalising isn’t enough and that for the model to work funds would need to be reallocated into the health care system.

“It is not a case of tomorrow morning we wake up and you can walk the streets of Dublin with a specific number of drugs and you won’t get a criminal record,” he explained to The College View.

Twenty-seven year-old Donal smoked cannabis for two years, spending €125 a week on his habit. When

asked his views on decriminalisation, he said “I don’t think it will do much either way to be honest. I think if you’re curious you will try it whether it’s legal or not. Some people will try it and decide it’s not for them. Others will stay on as users, this is happening anyway regardless”.

Anna Quigley, Coordinator for the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, has said that there needs to be a change in the law to not just reduce the criminalisation but also the stigmatisation of disadvantaged communities.

“The evidence shows that our current approach of criminalising people for possession of drugs does not reduce the overall levels of drug use in society, but what it does do is increase the difficulties and challenges for a person who is trying to address his/her drug use,” she added.

Dublin GAA star, Philly McMahon, premiered his documentary ‘The Hardest Hit’ last October. McMahon lost his brother to a drug overdose in 2012. In the documentary, he visits Portugal who has decriminalised drugs and compared their situation to that in Ireland.

Portugal brought in drug decriminalisation in 2001. At this time, according

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Likes, comments and hatred

Women are among those most targeted on social media.

Decriminalisation does not mean that drugs will be legally and freely available

Sara Monks, a social care worker from Dublin, says that she would be in agreement with decriminalisation, however, that it is definitely not black or white.

“One problem is that dealers could benefit from this by getting more people to carry drugs for them with whatever the personal amount allowed will be,” she told The College View.

A working group was set up by Minister of State for Health Promotion, Catherine Byrne, to tackle Ireland’s drug issue and implement some form of decriminalisation. The outcome of that report will be out in the next two months.

Declan Moore doesn’t think that the possibility of a drug policy reform in Ireland is out of reach. “I don’t think it is outside the realm of possibility. Anna Liffey maintain that by 2022 they are quite confident that we will have some form of decriminalisation drug policy in practice,” he explained.

Credit: European Drug Report 2018

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Róisín Cullen Chief-Sub-Editor @CullenRoisin

he was wearing a thong with a lace front.”

Throughout history, choice of clothing has been wrongfully mistaken for consent. Throughout history, women have been told what they can and cannot wear. Young girls become accustomed to an ideal image, a role model, a model of a certain size. They soon realise that anything that falls outside of this image is frowned upon and often scrutinised by society. The law itself, has prohibited one’s ability to express their own individuality through their clothing and sense of style. The humble bikini inspired from a pre-Roman ensemble comprising of a “subligaria” and a “strophium” was declared “sinful” by Pope Pius XII, leading to bikini bans in countries across the world.

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They put someone else down to feel better about themselves

Women in the City of Light are still technically prohibited from sporting trousers despite numerous attempts to appeal an 1800 ruling.

When Andrea Eakin posted a picture of her outfit on Twitter, she did not expect the backlash, controversy and viral attention that would follow. Her 500 followers quickly became an unexpected 3,000 as strangers started to share and give their opinions on Andrea’s mesh top and nipple covers. A number of now deleted tweets compared the Maynooth University student’s outfit to a porn star’s and remarked that her outfit choice could ultimately lead to unwanted sexual advances.

“If you dress like this don’t question why weird guys touch you on nights out” some comments read.

Eakin reiterated that her outfit was not a substitute for consent. “I don’t think anything anyone wears defines

Credit: Gillian Hogan

their consent. How I choose to dress doesn’t justify me getting sexually assaulted or harassed by men.”

The English and Sociology student was forced to change her private Instagram page in order to avoid numerous follower requests. A number of men contacted her asking her if she wanted money; one even offering to hand out €200 at three different ATMs in Dublin City Centre (commonly referred to as an “ATM meet”). Eakin feared that these men had a sinister motive for planning these meets and immediately cut contact.

“Some men genuinely think that the way you dress determines your consent and gives them an excuse to harass you on a night out, because you were ‘asking for it,” she said.

The 20-year-old was particularly disturbed by the spiteful nature behind some of the tweets from female strangers.

“They put someone else down to feel better about themselves. I think we already live in a patriarchal society where women are put down for wearing whatever they want. Some girls feed into that… It makes me sad because I would rather see girls united than putting each other down.”

She also highlighted the fact that a certain body type is often idealised in our society, spurred on by the media.

“There is a perfect look, be a certain size, be a certain way. On social media girls compare themselves to other girls.”

Ms Eakin is inspired by Dublin based, social influencer Jess Brennan.

Brennan boasts a following of 49,000 fans and promotes the celebration of female sexuality. “She inspires me. She owns her right to wear whatever she wants.”

Her advice to a generation of young girls growing up in a world where it is so easy to let strangers and friends alike make you question your own choices and morals?

“Wear whatever you want, if someone gives you abuse over it then they are either insecure in themselves, jealous or they are a misogynistic man wanting to put you down for showing skin. Some people don’t want to see women owning their sexuality and their right to wear whatever they want,” she concluded.

Features

20

760 days in to the Trump presidency, a longing for Obama With excitement already building for the 2020 presidential election, how successful has the Trump presidency really been?

Credit: Sabrine Donohoe

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Amy Donohoe Social Media Editor @amydonohoe1

t has been over two years since the bright red ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball cap entered the popular culture as Donald Trump’s political merchandise. The hat has pit people against each other, caused debates and sparked fear since January 20th, 2017, the day Trump was sworn in.

There have been no wars, terrorist attacks or economic crashes. However, there has been a loss of intangibles like human decency, valuing, honesty and integrity.

“I think the world’s a much more dangerous place today than it was two years ago and I see a lack of understanding, wisdom, capabilities in the Trump presidency that I didn’t see in the Obama presidency,” said DCU journalism lecturer Professor Steven Knowlton, who is originally from the US. Since the businessman and reality TV celebrity took the oath as president, Trump has often bragged about how much legislation he’s passed. However, if his achievements are compared to Barack Obama’s, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Obama passed several huge and historic pieces of legislation during his first two years. The most obvious of them is the Affordable Care Act, which extended health treatment to 20 million Americans and significantly changed the way Americans receive health care. Eight years after it has passed, it continues to be one of the most talked about laws in American politics as Democrats were trying to get it for

100 years and never achieved it until Obama came along.

Obamacare isn’t the only remarkable piece of legislation Obama signed during his first two years in office. He also signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, which made it much easier for workers to sue their employers for wage discrimination. Not long after, he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which injected $831 billion (approx. €737 billion) into the American economy in a successful attempt to prevent a depression after the financial downfall months earlier.

In 2010, Obama signed the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This was a financial reform bill intended to reign in the Wall Street excesses that many blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. This resulted in the first government agency dedicated to protecting consumers from greedy financial practices.

Meanwhile, the only bill Trump has signed, that could reasonably be compared to the Affordable Care Act or Dodd-Frank, is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This cuts corporate tax rate by 15 per cent and slashes income tax rate for top earners by 2.6 per cent, which mainly benefits the wealthiest Americans.

In August 2017, Congress passed a bill that both imposed new sanctions on Russia and restricted Trump’s ability to ease existing sanctions. When it landed on Trump’s desk, he called it “clearly unconstitutional” but, signed it into law anyway.

Trump also signed bills to provide relief money after various natural disasters and make it easier for the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire employees at that agency.

During his campaign, Mr Trump

vowed to create 25 million jobs over 10 years and become “the greatest jobs president... ever”. But job creation under Trump during his first two years in office decreased slightly when compared to President Obama’s final two. Meanwhile, Obama inherited the biggest financial collapse since The Great Depression in 1929 and turned it around. The economy was saved, and major industries were saved from going under entirely.

“Presidents always get the credit for the good economic news and the blame for bad economic news. It’s almost always what their predecessor did that

“

been true for 75 years,” Knowlton explained.

“Have you ever heard Obama speaking the way Trump did on the access Hollywood tape? This was not locker room banter, he was at work. For eight years there was not a whiff of scandal in the Obama administration,” he added.

The policies of the Trump administration have been so inapt, it could be worse if he was smarter and worked harder. Since World War Two, America was a place where most of the world could look for not only just money,

I can’t live in Trump’s America. It’s soul destroying...and depressing. determine it.

We have the interesting phenomenon of Democrats, when they take office, inherit an economy with the mess that is going out of control and they have to fix it.

They stabilise things and leave the economy in good shape and the Republicans come back in and cut tax on their supporters and wreck the economy again and when the Democrats come back in there’s no money and that has

but moral leadership and that has been horribly eroded in the past two years,” he said.

Knowlton said in 2017 that he would not go back to America as long as Trump was in presidency and he still stands by that statement.

“I could go back and there’s some pretty serious reasons to go back but I’m not going to. I can’t live in Trump’s America. Its soul destroying...and de-

pressing.”

Although he may be considered controversial, Trump’s reality-television style of leadership is making Americans more engaged with politics. The next election season could have high midterm turnouts and the many candidates because of him.

For the past two years, those who see Trump as a racist fraud have become passionate about politics and there has been a wave of liberal victories across the country as there has been a push for more accessible health care, affordable education and an improved immigration system Television channels like Fox News are breaking records and subscription news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post have experienced great growth in the last two years. Dinner conversations that were once full of gossip, sports talk, and family updates are now often about the most current political topic due to Trump.

It has already led to three historically underrepresented groups running for office. There are more young people, more minorities and more women participating. There’s also the potential that more Americans will vote and will cast their vote sensibly.

The next inauguration will be in two years. So, has Trump made America great again? Will he run again?

The campaign has already kicked off and the Democrats are optimistic on conquering the White House once again.

Several candidates have already announced that they are standing for the Democratic nomination, such as Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Other potentials, like former Vice President Joe Biden, are rumoured to be running.

Sport

Roche believes the GAA calendar needs to be changed

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DCU Hurling manager Eoin Roche spoke to The College View about the challenges facing players in college.

John Morley Deputy Sports Editor @johnmorleysport

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CU hurling manager Declan Roche believes the GAA calendar needs to be changed to account for the numerous commitments of inter-county student players.

“The calendar needs to be sorted out. Any calendar which plays the first round of the Fitzgibbon the same day as the Walsh Cup final is not a good idea”, said Roche.

Speaking to The College View after the dramatic extra-time exit of the DCU hurlers from the Fitzgibbon Cup, Roche expressed deep empathy with his players’ busy schedule.

“Every college is in the same boat.

Every college has a number of county players”, said Roche.

“There are difficulties there with the calendar but that’s up to the people in the administration of the GAA and the Higher Education of the GAA to sort out.”, he added.

The DCU boss was sombre in his tone as he admitted that there was nothing that could be done at management level to change the situation.

“Unfortunately, we can’t do much about that, but we can only make a

recommendation about it”, he said.

“I coach and manage teams, I don’t look after administration”, he added.

Lamenting on the disappointing loss to UCC down in WIT campus, Roche discussed the ebb and flow nature of the thrilling encounter, which UCC won from behind with a late penalty.

“It was just a close game. There was never more than two or three points in it for the whole game”, he said.

Roche was disappointed with the concession of the late penalty but said a two-point lead was not a safe enough lead, given the nature of the close semifinal.

“It’s difficult to take but we possibly should have been a little further ahead so that wouldn’t have put us in that situation”, he said.

Roche praised UCC on their victory and admired some of their top-class hurlers.

“Shane Kingston was very good, (Shane) Conway was very

“

Every college is in the same boat

good, Jack Barry, Chris O’Leary was excellent for them. Look they have some very good hurlers”, said Roche.

As the season ends for the DCU Fitzgibbon team Roche reflected positively on his team’s efforts

Credit: Sport Action

DCU in action against Mary I in November

throughout the year and over the last two years.

“Very happy with the lads, the boys were excellent. They have a lot of commitments between their studies obviously, and their county commitments, and their club commitments”, he said.

“It’s a very difficult calendar for

them and the lads did excellent”, he added.

Roche and his management team will now go back to the drawing board and try to build on the progression of the team under their reign.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed we didn’t win it, we had a good league and won the league”, said Roche.

“But we’ve fallen short the last two years where there was an opportunity for us to win it in at least one of those two years”, he added.

University College Cork will now face Mary Immaculate College in the Fitzgibbon Cup final on the 23rd of February in WIT GAA grounds.

DCU camogie fall to champions UL in Cork

DCU’s Ashbourne Cup side lost out in the semi-final of the Ashbourne Cup to eventual champions UL.

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“We’ve so many leaders on the team as I said, I didn’t feel the pressure to stand up or anything,” Harty commented.

Harty was impressed by the contribution newcomers brought to the team and believes the future for DCU camogie is bright.

“There were so many first years that stood up this year and made a massive difference to the panel.

“Then of course there were the older seasoned players that were still there like the likes of Laura Greene, Eimear Corr and Claire Sexton who were massive influential players, then there’s the younger players like Hannah Higgs who plays for Dublin.”

Eoin Harte Deputy Lifestyle Editor @EoinHarte98

CU Camogie were beaten by University of Limerick (UL) in the semi-final of the Ashbourne Cup on the 9th of February in Mallow.

UL beat DCU by 2-12 to 1-6 and went on to win the tournament, beating University College Cork (UCC) in the final.

Rachel Harty, captain of the DCU side, spoke to The College View, saying she was pleased with how well things went for her side in the tournament.

“I don’t think it’s ever actually been done in the college before, I’d have to double check but I don’t think we’ve ever made it to the semi-final of the Ashbourne before.”

The final and semi-final are played on the same weekend in the Ashbourne Cup, so finalists must endure a physically demanding weekend.

“If we got to the final alright it would’ve been tough. I went the following day to see the final and you could see by the players, especially UCC and WIT it was a very close game but you could see by the bodies they were very tired.

“The following day they were

“

you could see by the bodies they were very tired

Hannah Hegarty in action for DCU in the Ashbourne Cup.

playing UL in the final. So it would be very tough, I think,” Harty explained.

It was the first year that Harty captained the side, a privilege she was honoured to have.

“I didn’t expect it at all. The lads approached me at the start of the year.

I was like ‘me, of all people’, I didn’t expect it. Especially being a third year like there’s fourth years on the team.

I expected them to get it, so it was a massive honour to be asked,” Harty said.

With plenty of experience on the

Credit: DCUGAAAcademy / Twitter

team from previous years, Harty had plenty of support in her role as captain.

“Sure the girls were brilliant all year, there was so many leaders on the team I didn’t even feel like I was the captain. It was just a title to me more than anything.

While DCU were unsuccessful in their efforts to claim the Ashbourne Cup this year, Harty sees no reason as to why they can’t go on to win the tournament next year.

“Hopefully we’ll get a bit further. I could even imagine us getting to the final next year and hopefully win it out. That would be the plan anyway because we’re well capable of it.

“We’re only losing four fourth years.

We still have the bulk of the team, the bulk of the panel with hopefully new first years coming in.”

Sport

22

Collingwood side lose out to eventual champions UCC Gerard Grimes Sports Editor @GerardGrimes11

DCU finished as runners-up in the Farquhar Cup, losing to Queens in the final.

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CU’s Collingwood Cup side finished as runners-up in the Farquhar Cup final at this year’s tournament in UL. Johnny McDonnell’s side were drawn against eventual champions UCC in the quarter-final draw of the Collingwood, losing 2-1 to the Cork outfit.

Garan Manley and Simon Falvey gave UCC an early lead before Ruadhan Feeney’s late goal brought an intriguing ending to the quarter final tie.

DCU dropped into the secondary tournament, the Farquhar Cup, where they were drawn to face Maynooth University in the semi-final.

The tie ended 3-3 after normal time after Jack O’Connor and Brian McGivern scored braces for DCU and Maynooth respectively in the first half.

The second half saw Caoimhin Kelly sent off for Maynooth, who went 3-2 up through Daniel Grant before Feeney again struck late on, in this last minute, to bring the game to extratime.

Two goals in extra time from Gavin Kearney, and a second of the game from Feeney were enough to see DCU win 5-3 against the ten men of Maynooth and progress to the final.

Queen’s University Belfast were the opponents in the Farquhar final and again the game went to extra time, as Feeney again scored before Daire Rooney equalised for Queen’s.

Goals in extra time from Calum Byers and Ronan Young won it for Queen’s as DCU fell to

Credit: thirdlevelfootb/ Twitter

DCU’s squad at the Collingwood Cup

a 3-1 defeat.

Following their league campaign, DCU had gone into the Collingwood without any pressure on their shoulders, but top scorer Ruadhan Feeney admitted they naturally felt disappointed following the Farquhar final.

“Initially due to our poor performance in the league and not having to worry about anything other than the Collingwood itself, I feel we went into the tournament knowing we had nothing to lose.

“Despite a poor start we really took the game to UCC and if I’m not mistaken hit the woodwork three or four times,” Feeney told The College View.

“Our good reaction to going two goals down showed that we could really take the game to any team in the competition.

“The next day our game vs Maynooth was tense and tight but towards the end of the game we had them under serious pressure like the UCC game the day before.

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On a personal level, this season was immense

“Eventually our determination and quality showed and we were rewarded unlike the first day,” Feeney said.

“Naturally we were all disappointed (to lose the final), we wouldn’t be playing at that level if we weren’t, but overall I think a medal to show for our hard work and dedication through some tough games throughout the year.”

“We never thought of stopping or quitting,” Feeney, who played for Longford Town’s U-19 side in the SSE Airtricity League last season, said.

Feeney was DCU’s top scorer this season, scoring nine goals in eight games – five in the league and four in three games in the Colling-

wood, in comparison to none last season.

However, despite his impressive goalscoring form, which continued into the Collingwood, Feeney said he had a poor tournament himself.

“On a personal level this season was immense. Despite my form fluctuating and I go as far as to say I had a poor Collingwood Cup, my confidence that if I got myself into the box I would score, was always there.

“I have to say that the group of lads I played with and the ever inspiring coaching staff were the reason I could sustain my goalscoring record.

“Going out onto the pitch I knew I could play my football with ease and confidence because we had such a great group.”

Archery hit the target in GMIT intervarsity Calum Atkinson Contributor @thecollegeview

DCU Archery won eight medals at the GMIT intervarsity event, including two gold medals.

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CU Archery claimed eight medals in the Galway-Mayo IT intervarsity event on the 10th of February The competition in GMIT was the third of the five indoor intervarsity league events. The final two rounds of the league will take place in Limerick and NUI Galway in the coming months and many DCU archers have put themselves in a strong position in their respective categories.

The DCU team finished second overall in Galway, winning two gold, three silver and three bronze medals in individual competitions.

In the team events, DCU placed second in the mixed and compound categories as well

as third in the recurve and barebow events.

Niamh Merry won gold in the Compound Female category. “Personally, I’m quite happy with how I shot”, Merry said after winning her category with a score of 554.

“I’m really proud of our team, it’s really great to see how much everyone’s grown and improved since they first started training,” said Merry, expressing her delight with the team’s performance.

Fiachra MacDermott also won gold in his individual discipline, the recurve advanced male. Despite winning his category, MacDermott wasn’t happy with how he shot on the day in Galway and knows he can still improve.

However, MacDermott was pleased with the team’s performance during the intervarsity event in Galway and looked forward to the upcoming nationals.

“As a team though we did well, a few people got close to their best score and we had decent finishing positions as a whole.”

“I think we’re all looking forward to the nationals and hoping to come back with a lot of medals”, Fiachra MacDermott said.

Kealan O’Connor, Luke Oonan and Amelie Fäßler won individual silver medals in Galway in the recurve beginner male, compound male and recurve beginner female respectively.

The three bronze medals came as Emma Goodwin, Tara McMullan and Ryan Kirk came third in the recurve intermediate female, compound female and beginner barebow male.

The team’s focus now shifts to the National Student Indoor Championships in Cork.

This prestigious two day competition takes place in UCC on the 23rd and 24th of February.

Niamh Merry told The College View about her expectations for the upcoming competition.

“It’s going to be over two days so it’ll be quite tiring both physically and mentally.

“But, it mimics the style of national and international level competitions so it’s a great opportunity to experience that.

“I’m hoping to put everything I’ve learned to the test at the student nationals in two weeks, which is probably the biggest student competition of the year”, Merry added.

“

It mimics the style of national and international level competitions

A member of DCU Archery shoots at the GMIT Intervarsity

Credit: DCU Archery/Facebook

Sport

Hogan living the dream with Irish Sevens

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Brittany Hogan spoke to The College View following Ireland’s recent fourth placed finish at the Sydney Sevens.

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Joseph O’Gorman Contributor @thecollegeview

reland Rugby Sevens star Brittany Hogan described her recent appearances on the World Sevens Series as “ just an absolute dream”.

The Ulster centre was part of an Ireland Women’s Sevens squad that made history at the Sydney Sevens by topping their pool and finishing at their highest ever position of fourth.

The tournament started slow for Ireland, with a drawn game against Russia.

This was followed by an upset win against Canada, and a comfortable win against Fiji.

Spain were up next in the quarter final, before losing out to Australia in the semi-final and against the USA in the third place playoff.

Hogan started her Sevens career in August of last year, winning her first cap in Kazan in the European Sevens Grand Prix.

“Your first cap is obviously one of your best experiences, because playing for Ireland is just a dream, especially for the younger girls in the squad who’ve been playing rugby since they were little and playing with the green jersey on your back after years of watching it on tv, was just a dream.”

Hogan said.

Making it on to the World Series, however, was a step above, playing against the very best in the world.

“In Dubai we had New Zealand in our group, and I remember standing up before a scrum and seeing Sarah Goss standing in front of me, and Ruby Tui and it was just amazing, you’d be standing there thinking ‘you’ve made it’.”

While Dubai was not the best tournament from an Irish perspective, an eighth place finish and three games lost, it was a particularly special tournament for Hogan as her family made the trip out to Dubai.

Hogan is currently in second year of Sport Science & Health in DCU after transferring this year.

She said because of her being on the periphery of Ireland squads, she was putting training ahead of her coursework.

“I wasn’t making lectures, I was only really making the compulsory ones, and because Lansdowne (where the Sevens squads train) is a half an hour drive away, its hard to make lectures that are in between trainings, in the middle of the day, so I would just skip them.

“It definitely was a big factor, and made my week 11 and 12 of semester one fairly hectic.

“Lecturers were actually very understanding and helpful though, they would help me out with notes.

Credit: Ulster Rugby

Brittany Hogan in action for Ulster

“Brendan Egan for example, I was able to meet with him one-to-one and discuss some of the assignments and the exam in January.

“That was so helpful for me because I don’t think I would have got through it otherwise.”

She went to acknowledge the help

“playing for Ireland is just a dream

given by Sports Development and the Rugby Officers, particularly when needing to travel to tournaments in far flung locations like Dubai and Australia.

Next up for the Ireland women on the World Series is the Kitakyushu Sevens (Japan) on the 21st and 22nd of April.

As Hogan says herself, there are no guarantees in sport, but she will surely be well in contention for a spot on the plane to Japan.

DCU Badminton qualify for cup finals DCU Badminton progressed to the Tier 1 Cup Finals after finishing top of their qualifying group.

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Ian Brennan Podcast Editor @IPJBrennan97 CU Badminton finished top of their group to advance to the Tier 1 Cup Finals, which take place in Baldoyle Badminton

centre.

DCU finished top of Group F, where they came ahead of the Technical University Dublin Tallaght “B” team, and the National College of Ireland’s “A” team.

The other teams to progress to the Tier 1 finals are Cork IT, IT Carlow, TUD Tallaght “A”, Dundalk IT and TUD City Campus, or DIT. In each fixture there are five matches played, men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and then a mixed doubles match as well, giving each team five points to contest.

Melvin Cotoner, who is a member of DCU’s team to progress, spoke to The College View to give his take on how the team did in the group stages.

“We nearly beat all of them with a clean slate, 5-0, most of the time, so in our group I’d say it was pretty easy.”

DCU did suffer a 3-2 loss to Tallaght in the first round back at the start of November. However, they bounced

DCU Badminton Players

back the same day to Beat NCI “A” 5-0 in a clean sweep.

Credit: DCU Badminton

In the second round of fixtures later on in November, DCU were too good

put up a fight, we’ll “we’ll do our best

for their opponents, recording flawless 5-0 victories against both Tallaght and NCI. The third and final round of fixtures were played on the week of the 6th of February, with DCU tied on points with Tallaght going into it, only on top through score difference.

DCU held their nerve in the two final games to remain on top of the group

while Tallaght finished second and will now play in the Tier 2 Cup Finals.

There are certain rules regarding what makes a team as well, as Cotoner explains.

“To make a team you need two male players and two female players minimum, but you can have up to four from each gender.”

The second year Computer Science student realises that the Cup Finals will be a lot tougher than the group stages.

“I wouldn’t say it’ll be as easy as the group stages.

“It’s going to be more difficult, but I’d say we’ll put up a fight, we’ll do our best.”

There was one college in particular that Cotoner has been made aware of that could pose a threat to the team.

“My teammate mentioned DIT being one of the strongest teams in the finals.

“I myself haven’t met them yet but I’ll take his word for it,” he said.

Cotoner explained how the team chooses who plays each match in the competition.

“Each player knows their capabilities. So I wouldn’t play singles, I’d stay with the doubles.”

The Finals will be played on the 27th of February in Baldoyle Badminton centre.

sport

Eoin Roche spoke to The College View about the reasons why the GAA calendar needs to be changed due to the challenges facing college players.

DCU Athletics dominate indoors in Athlone DCU won the men’s title for the thirteenth year in a row, while the women’s team won the team title for the twelfth year in a row.

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Gerard Grimes Sports Editor @GerardGrimes11

CU Athletics again secured the men’s and women’s team titles at the Irish Indoor Track and Field Championships in Athlone IT recently.

The championships saw the men take home a 13th consecutive title while a dominant performance from the women’s team saw them win the team title for the 12th time on the bounce.

There were four new indoor club records set, two by male athletes, as Joseph Ojewumi ran a European qualifying standard of 6.77 to take the gold in the 60m while Cillin Greene won silver in the men’s 200m behind Ulster University’s Craig Newell, running 21.68 in the heats.

Both other club records came from the women’s team as Nadia Power won the 800m in 2:08:28 and Michaela Walsh the shot putt with 14.42.

Walsh also finished second behind DCU teammate Zoe Mohan in the 8kg weight for distance event.

DCU won thirty individual medals across both teams, made up of thirteen golds, nine silver and eight bronze.

In the men’s team Keith Marks, Shane Power and Eoin Sheridan all

Sophie Becker (604) competes for DCU.

won gold in the long jump, pole vault and shot putt alongside Ojewumi’s gold.

In addition to Power and Walsh on the women’s team, Kelly McGrory took gold in the 400m, as did Emma O’Brien in the 1500m.

Sarah McCarthy, Saragh Buggy and Daena Kealy won the long, triple and high jump respectively while Sophie

Credit: Facebook

Becker stormed to gold in the 200m.

Becker, DCU’s women’s team captain, also recently hit the European qualifying standard in the 400m with a time of 53.66 at the AAI Games, placing her seventh on the Irish All-Time Indoor list, as she now looks to claim her place on the plane to Glasgow.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Becker exclaimed after DCU’s dominant win

in the team standings.

“We were quietly confident that we would win as everyone was showing form in competition over the weeks leading up to it but it is still always great when we pull off the winning streak for another year.

“The girls’ team was very strong this year with great performances such as Kelly McGrory winning the 400m, Na-

dia Power claiming gold in 800m and Michaela Walsh winning the shot putt to name a few of the outstanding performances,” she explained.

“The boys’ team were strong too with a fantastic win by Joseph Ojewumi in the 60m and also gold for Shane Power in the pole vault and gold for Eoin Sheridan in the shot.

“I couldn’t be happier with how the season has gone for me so far. I ran a PB in the 200 and it was great to get the win as 400 would be my stronger event.

“I’m still on cloud nine after running the 400 standard for Glasgow and shaving a second off of my previous PB. If everything goes to plan this weekend at national seniors, hopefully I’ll be boarding the plane to Glasgow.”

Men’s captain Michael Carey also praised the team, calling it “a fantastic championship for DCU”.

“All the athletes performed unbelievably throughout the day with countless standout performances,” Carey said.

“We had a few illnesses and injuries in the week leading up to the event so we had some athletes competing off short notice so massive respect to them.

“The day couldn’t have gone better and really shows the strength of Athletics in DCU. A big shoutout to our Athletics Director Enda Fitzpatrick and all our DCU coaches who put in the work behind the scenes,” he said.

Tully makes it two in a row in Belfast DCU Handballer Fiona Tully won the ICHA Women’s Open Final for the second year running.

John Morley Deputy Sports Editor @JohnMorleysport

D

CU Handballer Fiona Tully won the Irish Collegiate Handball Association’s Women’s Open Final in Belfast on the 2nd of February.

Tully made it two wins in a row in the 40X20 competition beating Limerick IT rival Sinead Meagher in straight sets in the final.

After a tough tournament which saw Tully face her doubles partner in the semis, and which saw Meagher go to a tiebreak in her semi-final, Tully reflected on the momentous achievement.

“It was tough, but it was good. It was tough because we (Meagher) always play against each other and it was very tit-for-tat, but I was very happy to get the win because she’s very good,” Tully said.

Tully overcame her DCU doubles partner in the semi-final in what proved a challenging encounter.

“I played Meadhbh Ní Dhálaigh in

the semi-finals and I beat her. I played doubles with her as well last year in two competitions and we won them.

“You don’t enjoy beating them because they’re your partner for doubles competitions. I’m playing with her again in a week when we are competing in America, but we’re still friends so its fine,” she added.

Tully admitted that the familiarity of her doubles partner made for a tactical encounter in which she eventually triumphed.

“We both know how we both play so we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” she said.

Tully’s dominance in the women’s intervarsity’s games originated when she took up the sport in her youth after following her sister and her sister’s friend to their local club St Colman’s in Roscommon town.

“My sister and her friend used to go down (to the handball alley) and one day I went with them and I’ve been playing ever since,” said Tully.

Looking ahead to the America Open competition which Tully triumphed in in singles, and doubles with the help of Ní Dhálaigh, Tully hopes to continue

the form which helped her achieve the double in Belfast.

“We went over last year as well. I won the singles and Maedhbh and I won the doubles so we will hopefully try and do the same again this year,” she said.

The DCU handballing community has been represented well in competition lately with Tully, Ní Dhálaigh and Aoife Holden bringing in silverware and Tully was optimistic about the future of the club and sport.

“There’s about twenty or thirty of us and there’s a good few of us who go to all the competitions, so it’s a good community and everyone’s very friendly,” said Tully.

Tully also praised the women’s 20/20 initiative which hopes to promote participation by women and viewership of women’s sport by 20% by 2020.

“Yeah, the sport is definitely growing, especially with the help of things like the Lidl 20X20 campaign. There’s definitely more people going to matches and the ICHA are livestreaming the games on Facebook live so its good that a lot more people get to see the sport,” she said.

Fiona Tully (right) in Belfast.

Credit: Irish Collegiate Handball Association - ICHA / Facebook