TRINITY NEWS
Trinity News | Tuesday 18th October
Volume 63, Issue 2
trinitynews.ie
EST. 1953
Features p.7
Dublin Bus Driver, Colm Meaghar, talks to Sam Cox about daily road. Trinity Life p.11 Deirbhile Brennan gives an insight into Fourth Week
David O’Sullivan, Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, addresses the Hist
Scam jobs advertised on Careers Advisory Service A Trinity News investigation has uncovered that students applied for ‘fake’ jobs Rohan Swamy Staff Writer
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WO VACANCIES LISTED ON the Careers Advisory Service (CAS) website have been found to be fraudulent phishing scams, Trinity News has learned. Mr. N. Sameer, whose name has been changed on request, answered two job advertisements claiming to be with the Azamara Club Cruise Line and the V-Ships Cruise Liner. Sameer received job offers via email from both companies. These emails also contained copies of the relevant job contracts, which asked for personal information including his passport number. A subsequent email appearing to be from the Australian Immigration Office contained a visa form to be filled out by Sameer. Upon further investigation, both the email addresses
that had contacted him were found to be fake and were listed on both scam watchdog websites and on the real websites of both companies as a warning to others. Both websites also specified that the companies in question recruited potential staff through their own recruiting agencies based out of various port cities worldwide. The email from the Australian Immigration Office, and the documentation attached to the email, were also discovered to be forgeries. Speaking about his discovery of the scam, Mr. Sameer said: “I was obviously happy to have landed two of these jobs. The first was for the position of a retail salesperson and the second, a mechanical engineering technician. I sent the email out to a friend who pointed out that the email addresses sounded fishy. There were grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and even a mistaken nationality which was printed on the contract. Furthermore, there were no interviews
done. They directly sent the contract, which after the initial euphoria had died down, I found very strange.” Speaking to Trinity News, Director of the CAS, Seán O’Gionnáin said: “There are a series of checks that are conducted before a vacancy goes live. The vacancies are usually sent directly to the CAS and are posted by our staff. Prospective employers can post it themselves too.” Among the checks mentioned by O’Gionnáin were checks on the website of the relevant organisation, and scam notifications issued by professional organisations to which the CAS belongs. He confirmed that these checks had been carried out in the case of the advertisements. In the event of such a scam being reported, according to O’Gionnáin, the issue is thoroughly investigated and the advertisements are taken down. No further advertisements from that organisation are approved following the appearance of a scam job listing.
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Both the email addresses were found to be fake and were listed on scam watchdog websites
Speaking about previous such occurrences, O’Gionnáin said: “Scams are quite rare and I can only think of one example previously where we posted a vacancy and shortly afterwards received a notification via AGCAS, a UK careers service, that there was an active scam involved. We took down the vacancy and notified students via Facebook and Twitter but no one from Trinity had applied to this organization.” O’Gionnáin emphasised the need for vigilance among students when applying to jobs: “It is important that the students also confirm the jobs for their own security. No matter how thoroughly we check there will be the very occasional example of a fraudulent advertisement appearing.” The CAS website currently lists job vacancies from approximately 450 employers. Official data provided by the CAS claims it lists close to 3,000 vacancies every year.
Member clubs of DUCAC involved in electoral collusion at annual AGM
Comment p.17 Call for freedom of speech from the experiences of a prolife student InDepth p.19 American presidential election special: Who will be the next president? SciTech p.21 Nessa Fitzgerald updates us on the first human head transplant
Sport p. 23 Clare McCarthy, sits down with Trinity Hurlers; Leon Breen,
Fionn O’Riain
DUBC and DULBC pressure their novice teams to attend the DUCAC AGM and vote with ‘vested interest’ Daire O’Driscoll Deputy Sports Editor
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ultiple member clubs of the Dublin University Central Athletic Club (DUCAC) have been implicated in an electoral conspiracy at their annual general meeting (AGM) on October 13, Trinity News has learned. Freshman club members were allegedly pressured into attending the meeting in the hopes of electing candidates favoured by DU Boat Club (DUBC), DU Ladies’ Boat Club (DULBC), DU Ladies’ Hockey Club (DULHC) and DU Ladies’ Rugby Football Club (DULFC). The AGM saw the appointment of a new Chair and Vice-Chair, the former being vacated for the first time since 2009 following the end of Professor Cyril Smyth’s final term. The election for the position of chair was won by former circuit court judge and DUBC member Donagh McDonagh, defeating Dublin University GAA member PJ McGrane who was hoping to become the first student elected as chair of DUCAC - and DU Football Club (DUFC) member Gerry Kelly. The position of Vice Chair went to Senior Freshman History student Monty Badger. Badger won election by just twenty votes against former
ladies harriers captain of DU Harriers and Athletics Club (DUHAC), Laura Brennan.
“Compulsory” attendance
Prior to the AGM, a post on the DUBC Facebook page encouraged members to attend the AGM to “vote for all things boat.” Trinity News also discovered an email sent by DULBC Captain Megan Jungmann to DULBC members concerning the meeting. It stated: “as a focus sport, we need to ensure our input and as a club we want to contribute to development and improvement of sport in Trinity as a whole. Election is done by a vote so this is why we need to show strength in numbers.” Attendance at the AGM was described as “compulsory,” written in capital letters, bold font and underlined to emphasise the sentiment. The reason for compulsory attendance was explained as a means to ensure the election of those who were “prepared to give up their free time for the development of the club.” In the email, Jungmann went on to list the DUBC and DULBC members who were running for positions on the DUCAC executive. Among the names quoted were that of DULBC members Laura Walsh who was running for Honorary Vice Treasurer and Caoimhe Dempsey, running for a position as a club representative. Both
positions were uncontested. Recently elected DUCAC vice chair Monty Badger was also mentioned by Jungmann as a candidate that ladies boat club members were expected to support. The email concluded by informing the recipients that “attendance will be noted” and excuses were expected “on a postcard.” The former of these statements was described by one source within the DULBC as a tactic “to scare the novices into going to the AGM[sic].” The sender of the email, Captain Megan Jungmann, stressed that they would never threaten novices to attend the AGM. Jungmann said that compulsory attendance was a tactic used by all clubs to ensure a high turnout of their members. The phrase “excuses on on a postcard” was explained by Jungmann as a joking phrase used by coaches during training sessions, meaning that being out of the country was the only excuse for missing a training session. She later clarified that this phrase had only been included on the email sent out to senior members of the ladies boat club and not to novices. She was also keen to stress that she understood how her language may have been misconstrued but that “at the end of the day, you are trying to get people on [the committee] from your club.”
Speaking to Trinity News, when asked whether he felt that both DUBC and DULBC exerted undue influence on the DUCAC committee, Vice Chair-elect Monty Badger explained: “I don’t think so. Naturally bigger clubs will have a bigger representation.” Currently, over one third of the DUCAC committee is comprised of DUBC members. Badger expressed concern over funding cuts to DUCAC, noting that the previous year had seen the DUBC budget cut. Badger continued to say he feared that if “established” clubs were seeing a reduction in the money available that the effects would be worse for “small and developing clubs.” Consulting the notes he had prepared prior to this interview, Badger listed the “smaller” clubs that had representation such as DU Squash Rackets Club and DU Wind and Wake. Badger continued: “I feel when one comes to Trinity you must get involved in sport…[it] should be affordable and accessible to all.” He also stated that he sees his role as DUCAC vice chair as “vice to the chair of DUCAC”. The new chair of DUCAC, Donagh McDonagh, was not mentioned in the email sent out to DULBC members. When presented with the quotes from the DULBC, Badger said he could not comment on the internal policies of a different club.
However, he went on to say that the threats of noting attendance “sounds horrific” and that the tactics were tantamount to “blackmail”. Badger was keen to point out that such a strategy could be counterproductive as it was already difficult to “keep novices training.” The move by bigger clubs such as DULBC, DUBC, DULHC and DULFC to form alliances to wield greater influence on the committee has been characterised by sources as a “cartel of interest.” This characterisation led Badger to question the motives of smaller clubs, saying that there was a possibility that these allegations may have been stemming from “jealousy” and described the idea of “established clubs forming a monopoly” as “nonsense”. One possible reason provided to Trinity News for such collusion among larger clubs was that some clubs were more “capital intensive” than others. He went on to say that one of his first acts as Vice Chair would be to ease the wounds and settle “the bad blood” that seemed to have festered within the organisation.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
OCTOBER 2016
ART/FASHION/FILM/FOOD/GAMES/LIT/MUSIC/THEATRE/TV
Tn2: this issue, featuring interviews with Rusangano Family, Samuel Laurence Cunnane, Fantastic Films and Dan Hegarty