Volume XIX - Berliner Issue XI

the

University Observer

features

science

otwo

Croke Park II

Arrested Development

The Vaccines

the reaction of the Trade Union movement to the new deal

the removal of Ireland’s Chief Scientific Advisor may be a step backwards

Freddie Cowan about the band’s pop lineage and the realities of living and working as musicians

v o l u m e

USI seek legal advice as DCU declare affiliation referendum void

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Irish Research Council funding applications in chaos by emer sugrue · editor

by aoife valentine · deputy editor

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has sought legal advice concerning the decision taken by Dublin City University Students’ Union (DCUSU) President Paul Doherty to declare the USI affiliation referendum that took place in February, “null and void”. The referendum had returned a 55% ‘Yes’ vote, voting to re-affiliate to the USI. Following a meeting last week with the Office of Student Life (OSL) in DCU, Doherty released a statement to all students, saying: “The constitutionality has been challenged in relation to Article 9.1.6 which states that “The Students’ Union shall be responsible for the posting of the wording of proposed constitutional changes and the promotion of each referendum.” In the case of the USI referendum, DCU SU Executive did not to hold an information campaign or promote the referendum. Therefore, as protector of the Constitution I must now declare the USI affiliation referendum null and void.”

USI have since distributed emails sent out by DCU’s Returning Officer and from a number of SU College Convenors to students, informing them that the referendum was taking place and outlining the voting options open to students. USI believe that this should fulfil the information campaign criteria, but at the time of going to print, were seeking legal confirmation of this.

USI have responded to the statement from Doherty, with USI President John Logue stating: “Our primary focus now is to protect the democratic decision of DCU students to affiliate to USI. It is evident from the events that have transpired since the result of the referendum that a

Delegates voting at the Union of Students in Ireland’s National Congress 2013, which took place last week in Ballinasloe. small cohort in DCU is intent on subverting the students’ decision by any means necessary. This has culminated in the highly questionable decision by DCU Students’ Union today to declare the referendum null and void. USI will now take any measures necessary to ensure that the constitutional right of DCU students to join and form a union is vindicated.”

This is the most recent in a series of dispute following the result of the referendum. The day following the referendum, February 29th, Doherty had

expressed the opinion that this outcome was as a result of an unfair campaign, as USI Officers were allowed campaig n on campus, something which had not been permitted during the UCD USI affiliation referendum.

Doherty stated at the time: “Given that the deciding result was so close it [USI officers canvassing] probably was the deciding factor, in my opinion”.

Further disputes arose when DCUSU Executive tried to put a motion to DCUSU Council, asking them to declare the referendum void because it

wasn’t included on the ballot paper that students would have to pay the USI levy, leaving DCUSU to foot the bill themselves. This would amount to a total of €55,000, a quarter of DCUSU’s budget, something which Doherty believed to be an unfair result. Former DCUSU Returning Officer Steve Conlon asked that the motion not be put to Council as he said the SU cannot question the decision made by DCU students and this was accepted, three days before Doherty’s declaration voiding the result.

UCDSU walk out on USI Congress by kevin beirne

The majority of the UCD Students’ Union delegation left the floor of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Congress last Thursday in protest at the lack of time given to debate a motion on whether or not the USI should affiliate with anti-austerity groups.

UCDSU claim that their request to raise standing orders to increase the amount of debate time was ignored.

UCDSU had hoped to speak against motion UO14, which mandated “Officerboard to set up a committee whose function it is to establish ties and affiliations with other groups in our society who oppose austerity.” The motion had been criticised for its vagueness by UCDSU, and the attempt to allow more time for discussion was also supported

by Trinity College Dublin SU President, Rory Dunne.

Despite the protest, the motion was passed by a two-thirds majority. In a statement released by UCDSU President Rachel Breslin, it was claimed that “those who left the floor felt that the proposer deliberately exploited the Congress rules to ensure that not a single opposition speaker had a chance to speak.”

The statement went on to further clarify that “UCDSU members did not walk out because of the technicalities but because the proposer of the motion purposefully used the entire remaining time to make his speech, despite the UCDSU President walking onto stage and urging him not to summate in the circumstances.”

UCD students recently voted to

disaffiliate from the USI in February, but as UCDSU is still affiliated for the remainder of the year, the sabbatical team chose to send a delegation to Congress. UCDSU also claimed that there had been continued hostility towards their delegates at Congress prior to them leaving the floor, which was likely a response to 63% of the referendum vote was in favour of leaving the USI. Breslin stated that she felt that the UCDSU delegation’s presence was “negatively swaying votes due to an increasingly emotive and hostile atmosphere” and felt that they had no choice but to leave the Congress floor as they no longer felt welcome.

“UCDSU acknowledges that it is difficult for other colleges to respect and understand UCD students’ decision to leave while they remain members, but

at delegation meetings UCD delegates reported increasingly hostile reactions.

When it became apparent that it was no longer going to be possible for the UCDSU delegation to positively engage in the debate a majority of the delegates chose to leave Congress floor.”

Many students took to social media to demonstrate their frustration with both sides. Many criticised the fact that UCDSU wished to oppose affiliation with anti-austerity groups, while others questioned why there was no time to debate the motion when there had been time to debate the USI’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the previous day.

USI President John Logue declined to comment on the matter when contacted.

The new Irish Research Council’s (IRC) online application system for postgraduate funding has seen numerous complaints from applicants, who saw their work repeatedly deleted and made inaccessible to them. This is the first year the IRC has existed as a united body, with the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) merged in March of last year.

A UCD PhD student spoke to the University Observer of the problems experienced with the new system, noting that the centralised application created increased demand on the system and difficulties for students who would have once only applied for one grant or the other. The main problem experienced was the repeated deleting of nearly completed sections of the application. “When you’re filling out the online form, you can save drafts of the pages as you go along.

However if you leave any section of that page empty and you try to save the draft, instead of saving what you have on that page it deletes everything you’ve put in.

I lost about two hours of worth work one day because of that.”

Another UCD student had similar trouble, stating: “If you entered something in certain fields, it couldn’t be changed, a design flaw which had the capacity to completely screw up your application. I know one international student who entered the wrong continent as place of residence, and was unable to change it, thus possibly invalidating their application... This, as you can imagine, caused a lot of panic in applicants, and it really is insufficient for a government system.”

There were also issues with the system recognising registered supervisors, with the application unable to proceed without it. “It wouldn’t let me put in information from my supervisor. Every time I tried to put in their information it claimed that they weren’t on the system, despite the fact that they had actually registered with them three weeks before.

I’m not the only person this happened to, I was talking to other PhD students and they said they had the same difficulty.

You had supervisors for people having to ring up three or four times to make sure they were on the system.”

One student concluded that: “It seems the IRC are actively trying to dissuade people from applying. Every step was made as difficult as it could possibly be.

You need three different references of up to 1,500 words; it seems to me this is just in the hope that an applicant won’t be able to convince busy researchers to write it, so there will be one less application to worry about.”

UCDSU Postgraduate Officer, Mark Stokes, condemned the IRC merger. “I think the decision to merge the IRCHSS and the IRCSET was one that will in time be reversed. Even when they merged, there was a strong emphasis on the traditions of both bodies being maintained and their institutional memories being maintained. The recognition that a centralised body is not always the best way to to streamline is there, the Government just need to be willing to reverse a wrong decision. Teething problems are to be expected, but this decision and the problems that seem to be occurring would in many ways stem from the new structure not being a workable one or one that is best for the role.”

The Irish Research Council refused to comment on the situation, stating that “in the midst of a live call, we cannot comment.”

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NEWS

USI Congress 2013 Highlights by emer sugrue · editor

National Affairs Motion NA 1: Votes at 16 With the campaign lowering the voting age to 16 gathering momentum across Europe, USI have been mandated to add their voice to the movement. Is it hoped that lowering the voting age will address issues of youth apathy to politics. Recently the Scottish government announced that the 16 and 17 year olds will be allowed to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence, and it’s hoped by many that Ireland will follow suit.

The USI Vice President Equality and Citizenship is now be mandated to lobby for the legal voting age to be reduced to 16 years old. They will have to set up collaborations with the European Youth Forum, Spun Out and other relevant organisations and interact with the Constitutional Convention. This mandate should be completed within three years or until the voting age is lowered, whichever is reached first.

Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance Motions AAQA 1: Accreditation for Participation Ireland has no method in place for acknowledging extracurricular activities, such as society membership, to academic scripts. With the passing of this motion, the USI Vice President for Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance is mandated to research best practice for extracurricular accreditation across Higher Education Institutions, with a view to developing USI policy on Accreditation for Participation which may be presented to Irish colleges by Students’ Unions. This research is due to be completed by March 2014.

AAQA 4: Migrant Education Access Third level fees in Ireland for those without EU citizenship are extremely high, and currently students who acquire EU citizenship after starting in a third level institution are unable to have their fees lowered to the EU rate.

This motion mandates the USI Vice President for Equality and Citizenship to work with the Migrant Rights Centre on their Migrant Rights Centre Ireland on their Migrant Education Access (MEA) campaign.

They are also to lobby the Department of Education and Skills to take effective action to address the situation.

This may require a re-examination of the criteria of access to Free Tuition Fee Scheme currently administered by the Higher Education Authority and should result in a code of practice or a revised set of criteria being outlined to all third level institutes in Ireland.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Ag points set to rise again by conor keegan

Competition for places in Agricultural Science degree programmes offered by the UCD College of Agriculture, Food Science & Veterinary Medicine are set intensify as the points requirements for these specific courses look set to rise once again this year.

Such a rise in points is in line with an annual trend that has seen prospective students attracted to the booming agricultural and agribusiness employment sector. CAO figures show that the number of students who listed UCD’s degree in Agriculture as their first preference at third level rose by 5.5% in comparison with last year.

In 2012, a student required at least 445 points in the Leaving Certificate to be eligible for a place in the Agriculture

Omnibus course, representing a 40% increase from 2007.

In relation to the increased demand for places in the Agricultural sciences, UCD Students’ Union Education Officer, Shane Comer, commented: “The rise in points is indicative of the push that has been put in Ireland towards the sciences. I think in 2008 the points for Science, for example, was 300. So there has been a 200 point jump in four years. That’s incredible.”

He continued: “It’s very much attributed to the push that has been put on the sciences, but I think particularly the large chunk that we saw last year is a lot to do with the introduction of the project maths course and the change of the curriculum there.”

Although this increased desire to take up science subjects at third level

is encouraging, Comer added that the CAO points hike shouldn’t be allowed to get unsustainable: “I think it needs to be looked at because a lot of students who would be excellent at science are being potentially excluded from Science and from Agricultural Science because of the jump in points.”

He noted: “As a Science student myself, I entered the course with ordinary level maths, so I would have been a victim to this massive rise in points. It needs to be looked at before the points reach a level that is not only unsustainable, but downright unfair as well.”

Comer highlighted that a possible solution could be increasing the number of places available in these courses: “I’d like to see an increased number of places available. Now, whether the course can cope with an increased

number of places is a different story entirely.”

In addition, Teagasc, the authoritative body that is responsible for development and research of the Irish agricultural sector, recently revealed that the number of students applying for a place in the Level 5 Agriculture certificate was on a par with last year, which was a record high.

Commenting on the increased demand for places in agricultural based courses at third level, Teagasc head of Education Tony Pettit stated: “Based on the applications and level of interest so far, we will be looking at an intake of 600-650 students for that course in September 2013. That’s about level pegging with last year.”

2500 students expected for UCD LipDub by jack walsh · Chief reporter

University College Dublin (UCD) Societies Council are organising a LipDub (lip syncing and audio dubbing) video, aimed at promoting the work of the University’s clubs and societies. The video will be filmed in the new Student Centre on Friday April 26th, the last day of term.

Aifric Nugent, Chair of the UCD Societies Council explained that “The aim of this project is to promote their [clubs and societies’] achievements. Through filming on the day we hope to showcase all that these various groups can offer.

Our Inception concept [a video within a video] will highlight the various activities on offer throughout the rest of

the campus, and from the groups that may not traditionally be active on the Belfield campus but in other areas of the city and country by taking snapshots of other competitions and events and campaigns.”

She continued: “With the new facilities in the Student Centre complex opening at the start of the academic year last September, it provided a great opportunity for clubs and societies to showcase what they could do for the student body and their members while challenging them to adapt and utilise these new facilities as best they could.

Throughout the last two terms we have seen the students of UCD aim for and reach new heights in their organisational offerings.”

Nugent has issued a challenge to all clubs and societies on campus to get involved and market the positive social life in the college: “We want to hear from all of the students, get them interested and excited and listen to what crazy outlandish ideas they want to try out. Turn all preconceptions upside down and re-imagine UCD as a place of pure insanity: abseil from the roof of a building, acrobats on trampolines in a corridor, sailing boats on the lake, subaqua divers playing poker at the bottom of a swimming pool, a hippie-fest in a theatre; there is no end and no boundary to what is possible”.

Expressing her personal hopes for the project, Nugent continued: “The hope is to inspire and spread this en-

thusiasm over the next month before the day itself. We have an event organised for that night for all those who help out and turn up on the day, and they will be well fed and looked after during filming. We really hope that students will see this as a fantastic opportunity to broaden their horizons and challenge their imagination.”

Elaborating on the feedback they have received so far, Nugent said: “Our conversations with the clubs and societies since last week, the start of the ‘UCD LipDub’ Facebook page, and the launch day at the lake on Tuesday are all great successes. We’re getting fantastic feedback and some great ideas from everyone that’s on board.”

USI announces cyber-bullying awareness campaign by conor luke barry

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has unveiled a new campaign, ‘Think Before You Type’, to highlight the issue of online bullying. The initiative was launched following the approval of a policy entitled “Combating Cyberbullying in Third-Level Education” at the annual USI Congress, which took place between the 25th and the 28th of March in Ballinasloe.

The campaign is accompanied by the USI guide to cyber-bullying, which contains information on online etiquette and advice on how to deal with online bullying, while also offering information on support services available to people affected by cyber-bullying.

The campaign is being run in accordance with a coalition of youth or-

ganisations including; the National Youth Council of Ireland, Headstrong, SpunOut.ie, Headsup.ie, Reachout.com and the National Union of StudentsUnion of Students in Ireland (NUSUSI). Despite UCD students voting to disaffiliate from USI last month, the Students’ Union will still participate in the initiative as the referendum yet to take effect.

The decision was made to focus on the issue of cyber-bullying as the USI agreed it is an issue that directly affects students that has not received significant attention. The coalition of youth organisations have agreed that cyberbullying must be addressed at a national level and has become an issue of grave concern for many young people.

Vice-President for USI Welfare, Denise McCarthy, was keen to reiter-

ate the relevance of the initiative to students’ needs due to the growing number of cyber-bullying related issues being brought to the attention of Students’ Union officers nationwide and the lack of information available to students on how to address such issues.

In her statement following the announcement of the campaign, McCarthy said: “Social media is designed to bring people together, but when it’s used to exclude and target people the effects can be devastating.”

She continued: “Welfare officers around the country report an increasing number of students citing incidents of harassment and online abuse. Many students are unaware of the support services available to them and how to go about reporting it.”

McCarthy also emphasised the need

for USI to work in tandem with other youth orientated organisations to ensure the initiative is a success: “[The] USI, in partnership with Ireland’s major youth organisations, will raise awareness of the issue and hopefully curtail this worrying trend. I am delighted that Congress has approved our policy on this matter and I’m confident that it will inform our attitudes and actions on this issue over the coming years.”

This campaign to increase cyberbullying awareness comes in the aftermath of a similar UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) run project aimed at tackling the same problem in second level education, ‘I Was There’.

AAQA 12: Unpaid Internships The rise of unpaid internships in Ireland and Europe since the economic downturn has lead to concerns that young people may be taken advantage of, and required to do work which does not add to their skills and experience.

This motion attempts to address these issues and protect students and graduates by establishing a ‘best practice’ framework.

USI Vice President for Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance is now obliged to develop a framework of good practice for internships in conjunction with various stakeholders including, but not limited to the Department of Social Protection and the Higher Education Authority.

UCD DramSoc were nominated for six awards at this year’s Irish Student Drama Association (ISDA) awards ceremony in Cork last week. DramSoc’s Molly O’Mahony (pictured centre) took home the Best Female Actor award for her performance in the society’s production of Breathing Corpses. The ISDA’s are an umbrella organisation of Ireland’s most prolific drama societies. The association aims to provide a platform in which student drama and theatre

can be promoted and encouraged across third level institutions around the country.

The award ceremony takes place during ISDA’s annual theatre festival where DramSoc received nominations in categories such as Best Costume and Make Up, Best Lighting Design, Best Set Design, Best Actor in both Supporting and Leading Roles and Best Overall Production.

SEAN O’GRADY · deputy news editor

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

NEWS

USI Elect New President and Officer Board by evan o’quigley

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) have elected Joe O’Connor, as the new President of the organisation, with Paddy Guiney, Cat O’Driscoll and Denise McCarthy being elected VicePresident (VP) for Campaigns, VP for Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance, and VP for Welfare respectively.

Formerly holding the office of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Students’ Union (GMITSU) President for two years and Vice President for Students for one, O’Connor also has a degree in Accounting and a Masters Degree in Strategy and Innovation Management. Addressing Congress following his election, O’Connor stated: “I am honoured to have received overwhelming support and a compre-

hensive mandate from USI Congress today.”

In addition, O’Connor spoke of students awaiting grant payments and the pressures facing secondary school students who fear not being able to pay for third-level education: “I have spent the last three years dealing with students facing these enormous difficulties firsthand. These experiences will not only inform my term as USI President, but also provide the necessary motivation in our fight to protect access to higher education.”

At USI congress, the officer board positions were also filled, with current UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) Campaigns and Communications Officer, Paddy Guiney, being elected VP for Campaigns and Deputy President of USI. Guiney stated he was “Delighted.

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USI Congress 2013 Highlights by emer sugrue · editor

Administration and Finance Motions A&F 1: Motion to introduce increased USI Finance Committee Transparency During the recent referendums on USI affiliation which were held in colleges around the country, an issue raised by those seeking to disaffiliate was how USI spent it’s income, and whether individual institutions were getting value for their membership fees.

This motion aims to make USI expenditure more visible and accountable to members. This motion mandates the USI President to give a quarterly update to USI’s National Council and to provide members of National Council with the Agenda and Minutes of its meetings, with the exception of sensitive issues which may be withheld.

A&F 2: Motion on cost of USI Affiliation

The new USI President Joe O’Connor

Paddy Guiney: “It was a very long hard fought campaign”

It was a very long hard fought campaign, which required a lot of research into national strategies on funding. [We were] on the road all the time travelling around the island and ensuring that you win as many of the seven hustings in different colleges as you can.”

Guiney stated that his main priority will be the national fees campaign.

He commented: “Especially for the impending budget in October, if agreed

by National Council, I want to take a stronger focus on student supports and then look at a long-term funding policy.

I want to expand the role of Campaigns Officer not just 3rd level costs but assisting the relevant officers in their own nationwide campaigns like mental health, “SHAG” and/or equality.”

His role in USI does not begin until July 1st, when his sabbatical term in UCD ends. He says he remains committed to his role as C&C Officer in UCD until then, saying: “I missed the role when I was on the road so much!” He

has a number of campaigns in the pipeline for the remaining weeks of term, including Green Week which is taking place this week.

Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance, VP for Welfare, and VP for Equality and Citizenship were also elected, with Cat O’Driscoll, Denise McCarthy and Laura Harmon earning re-election to the positions they held during the 2012/2013 academic year. New members of the USI Office Board are Kevin Donoghue, who was elected as VP for the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) Region, and Ciara Guinan who was elected VP for the Southern Region, while Féidhlim Seoighe was elected as VP for the Irish Language.

The position of Vice President for the Northern Region has yet to be filled, as the position is jointly elected to the USI Officer Board and the UK National Union of Students National Executive Committee at NUS-USI Conference.

By-election called for Postgraduate Education Officer by aoife valentine · deputy editor

A by-election has been called by UCD Students’ Union Returning Officer Morgan Shelley, for the position of Postgraduate Education Officer, which was left uncontested when nominations closed for executive elections in February. The by-election will take place on Thursday April 11th.

Two candidates had put themselves forward to contest the position: Dylan Gray, a Masters of History student and Stephen Stokes, who is currently completing his Masters in American Studies. Stokes however has since withdrawn from the race, stating: “Having reflected, I will be under too much

academic pressure to run and will take away from my thesis time if I get in.”

Gray lists postgraduate maintenance grants as his top priority should he be elected. Aside from this, he believes the key issues for postgraduate students are gaining borrowing rights from Trinity College Dublin’s libraries, as well as producing transition guides for new students, something which he believes is a necessity. He commented: “A lot of it, I felt that it was just assumed ‘Oh you’re at graduate level, you can take care of yourself, we don’t need to provide a huge amount of help’ which I didn’t think was the best, especially for people who hadn’t done their undergrad at UCD.”

Gray admits that when nominations opened previously, along with the nominations for all other sabbatical and executive positions, he was unaware that they had opened. This is something which he feels is a big issue for the Union and postgraduate students on the whole, as he explains: “I think a big thing is that a lot of people don’t know is that there are graduate class reps so I want to get their involvement on that level. I think for MAs in Arts this year, there are supposed to be four class reps, but only two are filled. Nobody knows that they’re there for the most part, no one knew when the elections were, so I definitely want to try and get class reps from all different faculties. I’m going to

have regular meetings with all of them and if they have their own officer, I’ll be the first point of contact for them.”

He emphasised the need for this position within the Union, to begin to engage with postgraduate students who often ignored by the organisation, commenting: “I think at the end of next year we’ll see how much it’ll actually benefit graduate students and there is a lot that can be done.”

Gray is looking forward to contesting the position. “I’m very excited to run for the position. It’ll be interesting… It should be a good campaign, hopefully,” he says.

Controversy at USI Congress over motions on female participation in politics by emer sugrue · editor

During USI Congress 2013 held in Ballinasloe, County Galway last week, there was controversy over a number of motions proposed on female participation in Irish political life. Two motions that mandated that USI work to encourage more women to run for election and take up membership on policy groups and taskforces to were voted down by Congress delegates, with some claiming that the motions’ suggestion that women needed encouragement was “offensive”.

The first motion, originally passed in USI Congress 2009 but due to expire this year, mandated that the Vice Presi-

dent for Equality and Citizenship to “run a campaign highlighting the persistent inequalities between men and women in Irish Society... a campaign to promote female involvement at decision making level” and “work with organisations who share our aim of working for an equal society”.

The second motion regarding female participation in politics was proposed

by St Angela’s College Sligo Students’ Union, which sought to mandate “USI Officer Board to actively encourage females to seek nomination for selection to USI Finance Committee, task forces, specially formed working groups and subgroups”. Both motions were rejected by a comfortable margin. Those who voted against stressed that they felt the

wording of the motions to be unacceptable.

In reaction to this, an emergency motion was submitted on the final day of Congress by USI Vice President for Equality and Citizenship, Laura Harmon. Harmon, who described the rejection of the original motions as “shameful”. The emergency motion encouraged female participation but also equally mandated the encouragement of other under-represented groups in Ireland, including LGBT students, international students and students with disabilities. This was the final point in the motion, which focused mainly on rejecting arguments that women should be forced to stay in the home, in any instance where this issue may

come up, as well as restating the USI’s support for an earlier statement Harmon submitted to the Constitutional Convention opposing Article 41 of the Constitution, which implies there is no place for women outside the home.

This new motion was passed by Congress. Expressing her delight, Harmon stated that, “USI has a proud history of campaigning for gender equality and has long been an advocate for increased female participation in public life. I am delighted that Congress has adopted this comprehensive policy motion which reflects our long-held position on this issue.”

Another complaint raised by the No side during the recent UCD referendum on affiliation with USI was the cost to UCD Students’ Union and to each student. The annual cost of membership for UCD is €120,000, which does not include the extra costs of sending students to USI events such as Congress or Pink Day training. This motion mandates USI to look for alternative funding, as is done in other national Students’ Unions such as NUS in the UK, in a effort to lower membership fees.

This motion mandates the USI President to commence a financial review of the organisation and the production of a five year financial plan to be presented to USI Congress 2014. It orders a review the system of charging Member Organisation a charge per student regardless of size, student numbers and other criteria taken into account by other National Students’ Unions.

It also mandates the President to seek to reduce the affiliation fees and USI’s dependence on affiliation fees through increasing other income sources. Affiliation fees currently make up 99.8% of USI’s income, a huge disparity with other National Students’ Unions.

A&F 3: Motion to establish Working Group to investigate cost of Congress The annual USI Congress has often been a source of concern, as Students’ Unions spend thousands each year sending teams of delegates to stay for several days in a hotel. This motion mandates that there be an group set up to investigate methods of lowering costs. This motion establishes a working group to investigate the costs of Congress and identify areas or actions which may result in savings for Member Organisations.

International Affairs Motions IA 1: Highlighting of continued discrimination against Arab-Palestinian students Arab-Palestinian students in Israel have been facing a huge amount of harassment and discrimination, as conflict continues between the two countries. This motion mandates USI to lobby on their behalf. This was a hotly debated motion, as it was felt by many that this was an issue outside the remit of the USI, and that the effect they could have is minimal. This was particularly controversial as while this motion was originally deemed not to be a student issue and therefore required a two-thirds majority to be passed, delegates challenged this and voted for it to be passed by a simple majority. This motion was also debated by Congress for over 40 minutes, while other motions some felt were more pertinent to Irish students received a fraction of this time.

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NEWS

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Alex Owens elected auditor of L&H News in Brief by killian woods

by killian woods

Ruairí Quinn announces revamp of education system Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, has revealed plans to remodel the grading system at the Leaving Cert level in order to address the pressure that students experience striving for high points to gain access to thirdlevel institutions.

The project, called Supporting a Better Transition from Second Level to Higher Education, was unveiled on Wednesday March 27th and is set to be coordinated jointly by the Irish Universities Association, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Institutes of Technology Ireland, the State Examinations Commission and the Higher Education Authority.

Three key areas were highlighted to be addressed, such as reviewing Leaving Certificate grading bands, conducting an external analysis of the predictability of Leaving Certificate exam material, and a reduction of the numbers of Level 8 programmes available for selection at third level.

Speaking on the issue, Professor Philip Nolan of the Irish Universities Association stated: “Many of these courses [at third level] are simply variants of the main discipline. Students face very complex choices and early specialisation. The number of Level 8 courses must be radically reduced.”

While Anne Looney, Chief Executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, believes the issue is with the manner in which student are taught to get good grades: “The feedback we received from teachers is that in order to optimise student performance, learning in the real sense of the word is being ‘driven out’.”

Poolside Café opens for business Last week, the UCD Poolside Café opened in the new Student Centre becoming the latest food outlet to begin trading on campus. The café is located beside the 50m Olympic Swimming Pool and adjacent to the entrance for the UCD Sport & Fitness facilities.

The opening of the Poolside Café follows the relocation of the UCD Student Centre Kiosk to its new site beside the theatre and becomes the fourth food outlet available to students within the Student Centre alone. Serving a variety of hot food, freshly made pastries and pre-packed sandwiches, the Poolside Café also has a range of hot beverages on offer.

Second year Medical student Alex Owens has been elected Auditor of the 159th Session of UCD’s Literary and Historical (L&H) Society. Two candidates contested the position, with Psychology student Jamie Speiran falling short in the final tally.

Owens expressed his delight at securing the position and complimented the efforts of current auditor, Daisy Onubogu and his competitor Speiran during the 158th session: “I really enjoyed the year on committee. With Daisy at the helm, the 158th session was a rollercoaster ride which involved meeting Emeli Sandé and Jenna Marbles, brilliant debates such as “This House

by that lecture; equally I’d be interested in learning a bit about Criminal Law, Shakespearean drama or Irish History, and I think this cross-faculty opportunity is one that the L&H is best placed to provide.”

He noted the success of the Jailbreak fundraising event in Trinity earlier this year, and how it managed to be “captivating [for] students all over Ireland.”

He explained: “I’m excited to bring it to Belfield, and explore the possibility of running it at an intervarsity level.”

Finally, Owens encouraged students keen to be involved in the coming year to attend an information session being held Thursday April 4rd in the FitzGerald Chamber at 7pm.

Meanwhile, the Law Society held their Auditor elections Tuesday April

3nd for the society’s 103rd session, with voting about to begin at the time of going to print.

Business and Law students, John Hallahan and Rachel Duffy are officially contesting the position, with Donal Swan, commonly known as ‘Swanman’, also vying for the position of auditor.

Both Duffy, a former LawSoc James Joyce Maidens Convenor, and Hallahan, HLM Convenor, appear intent on addressing the concern that the society is perceived as an exclusive club for Law students and hope to attract more members from different faculties.

However, in contrast to his opponents’ policies, Swanman’s seems intent on making LawSoc a swan exclusive society, barring students from attaining membership.

4th annual Rás UCD to be held Saturday by anne-marie flynn

The fourth annual Rás UCD is set to take place this coming Saturday, April 6th, with all entry fees for the five kilometre road race being donated to the UCD Volunteers Overseas (UCDVO) projects.

UCD Rás, an initiative to raise money for the numerous projects being undertaken worldwide by UCDVO, was founded by UCD Medicine student Donal Hanratty in 2010. An active member of both the Cumann Gaelach

and UCD Athletics Club, and a resident of UCD’s Teach na Gaeilge, Hanratty conceived the bilingual race to raise funds for UCDVO, with whom he has twice volunteered in India.

Following its establishment four years ago, the race has helped generate funds for volunteering projects undertaken by UCDVO since former UCD chaplain, Fr. Tony Coote, established the charitable organisation that provides UCD students, staff and alumni with an opportunity to contribute valuable time, energy and skills to development projects overseas.

Since the project’s foundation in 2003, UCD staff and students have built health centres in Nicaragua, organised summer camps in Haiti, provided physiotherapy support in Delhi, and computer education programmes in Tanzania through Volunteers Overseas.

In 2012, over €7,000 was raised from 600 participants taking part in the Rás UCD, and similar funds are expected to be generated from this Saturday’s event.

Rás UCD committee member, Laura Shaughnessy, emphasised that Satur-

day’s race “is the perfect race to enter, whether participants are aiming to upgrade their personal best or simply complete the course.”

Athletes will be chip-timed, with prizes for winners of individual and team categories, as well as for the best fancy dress.

Registration for Rás UCD is now open on www.ucd.ie/rasucd or www. runireland.com/active/enter-online, and costs €10 for students and €15 for members of the public.

Observer voxpops DO YOU THINK WOMEN NEED TO BE ENCOURAGED INTO POLITICS?

“In a perfect world we should have a situation where the best candidate is going forward. Obviously there may be issues in Irish culture where women aren’t as comfortable going for political positions, but pushing women forward isn’t really going to cover the issue that women aren’t seen to be capable of taking high power positions or comfortable doing it. That is what should be addressed instead of trying to push them forward into places where they don’t feel comfortable going to.”

“I don’t agree with the idea that you need to push women into a job that they may not have an interest in.

I think the idea of gender quotas is about as ridiculous as affirmative action. If women want to be involved in something then they can take it up upon themselves to do so. I don’t think there is any need for encouragement into politics. In fact, if you can stay as far away from politics as you can, do.”

Ben Scott, 3rd Year Biochemistry

Eoin Regan, 3rd Year History and English Voxpops by Killian woods

Data analytics sector receives government fund Details have been revealed in relation to a €1 million investment into a research programme in data analytics by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton. Data analytics is a key sector of the world economy that is reported to be growing 40% per annum globally.

It was announced that University College Dublin (UCD) will be at the forefront of the endeavour in coordination with University College Cork (UCC) and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), and all research will be conducted at The Centre for Applied Data Analytics Research (CeADAR).

Data analytics is a process that involves converting large amounts of raw data into pertinent information for companies and organisations to use for statistical analysis of their relevant area of expertise.

Speaking about the importance of this project, Minister Bruton said, “A key part of this Government’s plan for growth and jobs is identifying areas where we believe Ireland has distinct advantages compared to other countries, and taking steps necessary to ensure that we realise our potential for employment in those areas.”

Professor Peter Clinch, who is currently Vice-President for Innovation at UCD, stated: “CeADAR brings together innovative companies and world-class Irish researchers from UCD, UCC and DIT into a powerful innovation partnership to perform leading-edge research in the area of big data. We are confident that CeADAR will help to position Ireland as a ‘go-to’ country for future big data solutions.”

Would Rather Be In Slytherin”... It will be a hard act to follow.” He also commended Speiran on running “an excellent campaign for auditor.”

Outlining his plans for the year to follow, Owens emphasised his intention to approach UCD lecturers to address the L&H, reinvent the Strauss Ball, and bring Jailbreak, the popular fundraising initiative, to UCD. “I want to invite lecturers from around campus to address the L&H on their subject.

This idea arose from a lecture given to first year medical students by former Dean of Medicine, Bill Powderly, on his involvement in applying laboratorybased HIV research to real patients.”

He continued: “I think that students not involved in medicine would be very interested in this topic and be inspired

“I don’t think that women need any more encouragement into politics. I don’t think you should legislate that there needs to be half and half, I think that’s ridiculous. It just needs to be a change in the education system, with politics introduced earlier and that there is an interest given to young people. With student politics I think a lot of people feel they have no power and that mars your view on politics in general.”

Amy Nic Giolla Phádraig, 3rd Year Food Science “I don’t think women need to be encouraged into politics. I think the encouragement is already there. If you look at SU level in terms of class representatives there are just as many females running for the positions as males. When it comes to sabbatical level, I think women are just a bit more studious and want to focus on their degrees and don’t want to jeopardise that by running for a position in the Union. In my opinion, however, when women get up to sabbatical level they excel better than their male counterparts.”

Jenny O’Dwyer, 3rd Year Chemistry

“While I don’t think quotas should be implemented, I definitely believe that women need encouragement in getting into politics.”

Robert Byrne, 2nd Year Phycology

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Observer Comment

COMMENT

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comment@universityobserver.ie

The China Syndrome With thousands of dead pigs being found in Shanghai rivers, Evan O’Quigley examines the consequences of deregulated industries

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here’s been some rather worrying news coming out of China. Earlier this month it was widely reported that some 16,000 dead pigs were found floating in a river in Shanghai. Not only has this event highlighted the disastrous affects of China’s unregulated food-industry, but further shows the serious consequences of unregulated industry generally.

Over a thousand pig carcasses were found in the Huangpu River, which cuts through China’s commercial hub and supplies 20% of its water. Since the incident, the city of Shanghai has stepped up its regulation of farming industries, further inspecting markets in order to stop the animals, which are believed to have died from disease, finding their way to dining tables.

While this recent news is no doubt an extreme example of the consequences of deregulation, it is hardly an isolated event. China has had a number of incidents causing public concern over food markets in recent months, including dangerous chemicals being found in baby milk powder which caused the deaths of six small children, and cheap cooking oil being recycled out of leftovers scooped out of the drains of restaurants.

Zhu Yi, a professor at China Agricultural University, has stated that the country’s farmers were “hard to supervise and regulate”, and pointed to the recent horse-meat scandal in Europe as evidence that this is a worldwide problem, and not the fault of China’s business practices. In this there may be some merit, in the sense that deregulated industries are not confined to China, but are now, in the neoliberal age, rather widespread globally. This incidents in China, coming so soon after the horse-meat scandal that affected countries in the European Union, shows

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he Mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg has proposed legislation this month requiring that stores no longer display cigarettes and keep them out of sight of customers. Bloomberg has moved on from his recent defeat in his campaign to limit large servings of sugary drinks, and is now focused on this new campaign, as part of promoting his health agenda, which aims to make it less easy for people to smoke.

If this bill is passes, it will make New York the first city in the USA to force retailers to keep tobacco products hidden, instead of being kept in a cabinet or a drawer, behind the counter or a curtain. Bloomberg announced that the aim of this campaign is intended to shield children from the marketing of tobacco companies and to keep those who have quit smoking from buying cigarettes on impulse. At a news conference this month, he stated that: “Such displays suggest that smoking is a normal activity, and they invite young people to experiment with tobacco.”

A second bill has also been proposed by the Bloomberg administration which would raise penalties for stores who evade tobacco taxes by sell-

“Over a thousand pig carcasses were found in the Huangpu River, which cuts through China’s commercial hub and supplies 20% of its water. Since the incident, the city of Shanghai has stepped up its regulation of farming industries” that this is a worldwide problem that needs a worldwide solution, and blaming individual countries and businesses will do little to change the reality that when there are not rules put in place to properly regulate businesses there are consequences.

In the 19th century, and right up until the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression, light-touch regulation of industry, and a laissez-faire approach to business, big and small was common. This was following the economic thought of Adam Smith, the ‘father of modern economics’, who argued that free markets were the best way to generate growth, and that the ‘invisible hand of the market’ would lead to a self-regulation of businesses that would be preferable to regulation by governing authorities of any kind.

This became unpopular after the Great Depression however, and Capitalism ing smuggled cigarettes and it would also create a minimum price of $10.50 per pack for cigarettes, as a further disincentive to smoke. The proposed legislation would not prohibit retailers from advertising the sale of the prices of cigarettes, nor would they raise taxes. The bills would not apply to tobacco stores either, which cannot admit minors without parental accompaniment.

Mayor Bloomberg has become a nationally recognised figure in the USA in his efforts to reduce trans-fat, salt and sugar consumption, and to curb smoking, teenage pregnancy and obesity.

The effectiveness of these particular policies regarding tobacco should be questioned however, as although the actual cigarettes are hidden from view, they are still marketed in stores, serving as a constant advertisement and reminder to the potential customer.

Bloomberg’s proposals will now go to the City Council for consideration, however if the legislation is passed it is quite likely, as with similar instances in the past, that New York City would face legal challenges. According to a report in the Rockland County Times, last April the Village of Haverstraw in Rockland County passed a ban on cigarette displays in retail stores, but re-

became far more regulated in the post World-War Two era. This era could be described as when capitalism worked best for everyone, with businesses being forced to ensure certain levels of safety and standards.

When Keynesian economics became discredited in the 1970s following periods of high-inflation that and economic stagnation, dubbed ‘stagflation’, the pro-regulation economics that had dominated the world since the 1940’s was coming to an end, and this was the beginning of the neoliberal era.

Neoliberal economists such as Milton Friedman and Fredrick Hayek took the centre stage at this time, calling for a return to the pre-Depression era economics, removing regulations they saw as unnecessary, and an obstacle in the way of free-market economics, which they argued was the most effective way of running the world economically.

There are however, dire consequences of such lack of regulation. Not only are wages kept at a stalemate, and workers rights often not respected, but this can lead, as we have seen recently, even to the most basic health standards being widely ignored in order to save money and cut costs.

If there had been a well-regulated food industry would we have all been eating horse burgers? Would there be thousands of dead pigs flowing through Chinese rivers? If all the big multi-national corporations were better regulated internationally, would there be nets outside Chinese factories (ones that produce products for Apple and Microsoft, among many other brands) in order to prevent suicides, which became so common due to the harsh working conditions and low-pay, (equivalent of around €1 an hour).

China is a particularly complicated situation economically. On one hand it is still a one-party Authoritarian state

“[I want] my own government to act democratically, with the same effectiveness that China can do autocratically” Thomas Friedman new york times columnist being continually cut, environmental regulations are being thrown at the window, and austerity is slowly eroding civilisation day by day. You know, on second thoughts, never mind about becoming China. Maybe we’re already there. Be sure to look out for dead pigs in the Liffey.

No smoking please With New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposing legislation that would require stores to keep cigarettes out of sight of customers, Claudine Murphy questions whether these policies effectively reduce smoking, or whether it is just pointless paternalism

“Bloomberg’s administration has banned smoking in almost all public spaces, including parks, plazas and beaches, and also in restaurants and bars”

Mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg

ruled by the Communist Party. On the other hand, it’s also the most capitalistic nation on earth. This bizarre combination ultimately has led to a situation where there is both too much government control, and not enough. In fact, in this sense, that can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Forcing people into work for fear of punishment, and creating the conditions in which they have no choice to work for industries, where governments makes no effort to ensure workers rights are kept to a bare minimum are really not that different in outcome.

Yet now, rather than condemning countries like China for their treatment of workers, Western countries are aspiring to be more like them. This is why Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times and bestselling author says [‘I want] my own government to act democratically, with the same effectiveness that China can do autocratically”. But, can that actually happen? Granted, in the West, Unions are continuing to weaken, wages are

scinded the ban in August when it could not afford to litigate a suit brought by tobacco companies and convenience stores against it. In her article for the New York Times, Anemona Hartocollis stated that in New York City, cigarettes ‘are like wallpaper at many convenience stores and, like bottled water and lottery tickets, account for a large percentage of sales.’

Therefore bills such as those proposed by Bloomberg are supported by members of the city council, although James S. Calvin, President of the New York Association of Convenience stores announced this month that due to high taxes, cigarettes have dropped from their best-selling position. $5.85 is added to the cost of every pack from state and city taxes combined, the highest in the country, and often more than the pack itself costs. How reasonable such legislation is is currently being questioned and criticised in particular by those whom the proposed bills are likely to affect.

Calvin claims that the view of himself and the association’s members is that the restrictions are ‘patently absurd’, and asks: “Can you think of any other retail business that is licensed to sell legal products that is required to hide them from the view of its customers? I can’t.” Calvin also made the point that convenience stores are permitted to display beer and lottery tickets while pharmacies display condoms, and he asked, rhetorically, whether anyone considered that these items compelled young people to start drink-

ing, gambling or having premarital sex, while questioning the rationale and logic behind these bills. David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria, parent company of Philip Morris USA, said the company supported federal legislation banning sales to minors however believed that introducing the ban of the display of products to adult tobacco consumers goes too far.

In her article, Hartocollis observed the views of retailers whom the legislation would affect, such as Mohsen Almuflahi, a manager of the Long Island Express Deli near the Jamaica, Queens, transit hub, who believes that the new laws, if passed, would not make any difference, arguing that, in the case of children and adults, “If they want to smoke, they’ll smoke anyways”.

New York officials state that smoking still kills 7,000 New Yorkers a year, although this has dropped somewhat in the past decade, as in 2002 the number reported was 8,722. Mayor Bloomberg also stated that the rate among high school students is at roughly 8.5%, which resides at half the national rate, since 2007.

Bloomberg’s administration has banned smoking in almost all public spaces, including parks, plazas and beaches, and also in restaurants and bars, and is looking for further success in the passing of these two bills as part of his health agenda for New York City.

As Bloomberg finishes his third and final term, whether or not they will be successful remains to be seen.

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The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Three to Tango With the national media in uproar over teen threesome advice provided by SpunOut.ie, Patrick Kelleher examines the State’s role in sex education, and asks, does it go far enough?

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n March 24th 2013, the Sunday Independent published an article concerning an article on the partly government funded youth website, SpunOut.ie. The article in question was one relating to threesomes. As a part of the website’s sexual education and health articles, information was given about how to partake in a threesome whilst keeping it “safe and enjoyable”. It was not until Fine Gael TD Michelle Mulherin raised issue with the article that the full severity hit the national media.

Since the article’s publication, there has been public outrage, both from concerned parents and worried politicians about the effects information like this could have on the website’s audience of 16-25 year olds. Minister James Reilly has said there will be an investigation into the article, and also said that he believes it is “not the appropriate sort of information that the state should be putting out there.”

Likewise, in her article in the Irish Independent on March 26th, Miriam Donohoe says she believes the article glamorises group sex, and is therefore dangerous for “vulnerable” teens. She believes that sex should be between “two responsible, loving, consenting adults.”

But why is it that, in a time when we are finally seeing an end to state sexual oppression, people object so strongly to the concept of a threesome? In fact, rather than objecting to the concept of the threesome, most critics of the article are simply objecting to information about threesomes being provided to 16-25 year olds. As with all debates about the state’s place in people’s sexual affairs, we must examine the question: does the state have a role in the sexual choices of its people?

The question itself gives the answer

in the word choice; sexual choices are precisely what they say they are. They involve one person’s decision to engage in a sexual activity with one person, or two people, or three people, or however many people they want, of whatever gender they desire.

The outrage expressed by many parents is often unquestioning disgust. This outrage occurs in a state where, according to the 2012 Durex Sexual Wellbeing Survey, nearly a third of Irish people have not received any form of sexual health education in secondary school.

And wherever there is a silence as resounding as the one around sex in Ireland, discomfort and misunderstanding will be at the core of public discussion.

Perhaps it is this squeamishness that still surrounds sex in Ireland that is at the core of the controversy, rather than the information about the threesome itself.

The criticisms from most people, who are perhaps of a generation who never received sex education at school, seem to centre on the fear that the information encourages young people to have threesomes. While some of the language of the original article (which has since been edited) was perhaps too light-hearted, the article, in essence, is unbiased and gives purely factual information. Most importantly, it offers extremely important advice to teenagers who may be considering taking part in a threesome on the use of contraception. Information is also given on the potential emotional impacts, such as the break-up of a relationship and jealousy from a partner. They also warn teenagers not to allow themselves to be pressurised into a threesome by a partner; they warn that it must be the individual’s own choice, and not somebody else’s.

But if this kind of information is not provided for teenagers by the State,

“If this kind of information is not provided for teenagers by the State, where will they get it?

Most teenagers will be reluctant to ask parents, schoolteachers, friends or siblings, so where will they turn? “

The People’s Victory With the introduction of a new press regulation scheme in Britain, Laura Woulfe argues that new system should only affect those who abuse another’s right to privacy

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he right to privacy seems to have finally come out victorious in the age old battle between protecting the privacy of the people against press freedom of expression.

The House of Commons has however subsequently descended into chaos in deciding the actual amendments of the new state-backed regime, with Education Secretary Michael Grove even stating: “I’m uncomfortable about politicians themselves deciding how the Press should be regulated.”

However, considering the bill stems from the uncovering of the phone hacking scandal in the British Press which

completely infringed on many well known people’s privacy such as Harry Potter novelist JK Rowling and actor Hugh Grant, it seems that the cry for a new press regulatory scheme was becoming increasingly louder. The Huffington Post in fact details how ”tabloid journalists had eavesdropped on voicemails, bribed officials for information and hacked into computers in a relentless quest for scoops.” Yet the most fundamentally damaging revelation to the reputation of the English press was when it emerged after 2011 that hacking was occurring on the phones of 13 year old murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler and even deceased soldiers.

Two years later, the press regulation deal has finally been put through and despite the feeble yet persistent protests from chairman and CEO of News Corporation Robert Murdoch, Prime Minister David Cameron is in no way trying to control the expression of the press once it maintains a certain expected and ethical level of respect for the privacy of the people they write about. What resulted was that on March 18th, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats drafted a royal charter which is said to ensure upfront apologies from the press to the victims, be a self-regulatory body with independent appointments and funding with

where will they get it? Most teenagers will be reluctant to ask parents, schoolteachers, friends or siblings, so where will they turn? In Ireland, a culture is already emerging of teenagers turning to pornography to get their education.

In a 2011 UNICEF online survey of 509 young people, 54% admitted to watching porn, with 36% believing what they had watched was “accurate and/or educational”.

These are facts that Minister James Reilly and TD Michelle Mulherin cannot, and must not ignore. In an increasingly sexualised world parents must be prepared for the inevitable: their children will have sex, whether that be when they are 16, 17, or much older. It is this, along with peer pressure amongst teenagers, that means that information like that provided by SpunOut.ie is essential.

In many ways, this controversy shows the ever widening gap in the Irish education system, and in particular, sex education in schools. It is disappointing that teenagers must still feel ashamed of their sexuality to the extent that they cannot discuss it with their peers and

teachers in a comfortable, safe environment.

The attitude young people have to sex, as a result of their lack of education on the subject, is what creates a sense of shame. Some parents and politicians may believe that providing information on threesomes normalises the practice for young people, however it is clear that lack of discussion breeds fear and misunderstanding. This is the sad reality for many young people today, who, as a result of controversies like this one, will continue to view their sexualities as something they should fear and hide.

They will no doubt continue to receive their education from unrealistic pornography.

If we are to form an inclusive, open and honest Ireland, we must accept the realities of sex, and with acceptance must come education and growth.

Those in government must face the facts of a modern world. One would think that rather than criticising the information provided, they would rejoice that somebody is providing it, as their education system is clearly failing to do so.

fines of 1% turnover for publishers up to one million pounds.

To further demonstrate that the Government has little interest in trying to control Britain’s press, but rather just wants to prevent any future acts of despicable intrusion into the lives of innocent people, the scheme will in fact be voluntary abeit with strong financial incentives to encourage newspapers to opt in. What’s more, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties have enacted legislation in order to ensure that the system cannot be altered easily. Labour leader Ed Miliband said to RTE news, “I genuinely believe it upholds the freedom of the press and also meets the terms that the victims [of phone hacking] have set out,”.

The system which has been devised by the government seems quite lenient in the wake of the emergence of the disturbing actions of the press, with victims even arguing that they expected more from David Cameron, with author J.K. Rowling saying that she and other victims feel like they “have been hung out to dry” by the Government. However despite this, numerous members of the press are still strongly voicing their opposition to the new system. With the announcement of the Press Regulation scheme on Monday 18th, some of the major press groups responded by proposing a boycott to the system, with two of the leading newspapers already declaring that they won’t be joining the system and critiquing press regulation as undermining freedom of expression.

There is, however, a wily clause that indicates that anyone who doesn’t sign up for the voluntary system may be liable to punitive exemplary damages for libel. The Scottish Newspaper society has in fact voiced their concerns on The Drum website saying, “One main issue with that is proposed is the impact on regional and local newspapers, who were praised and exonerated in the Leveson report but now face a more expensive and extensive regulatory system at a time of economic recession and migration of revenues to the internet.” Another leading legal director at a major media organization said to Legal Week, “Inevitably, there will be concerns about a chilling effect on the press. It feels like some things are being rushed through, in respect of which individuals and groups would become

“The opposition’s arguments are undeniably weak.

Freedom of expression is not undermined by curtailing a newspapers ability to hack into one’s phone and divulge their personal life to the public” part of the watchdog, and on the issue of exemplary damages and when they would apply.”

Yet none of these exemplary damages will be applied to those newspapers that join the system, and therefore it seems illogical for any newspaper to opt out. This undermines the government’s claim that the system is voluntary, but if a newspaper has nothing to hide about the means they undertake in order to create a gripping story then why not join the scheme? The charter that has so far been proposed shows no indication of making any substantial changes to distribution of information once it doesn’t have damaging effects on the public, and therefore should prove itself to be quite irrelevant to any respectable news organization. As said

by David Puttnam from the Guardian, the press regulation charter is a “significant victory in the battle to ensure a free and fair media, a media that genuinely serve the interests of citizens, and the development of an ever better informed democracy.”

The opposition’s arguments are undeniably weak. Freedom of expression is not undermined by curtailing a newspapers ability to hack into one’s phone and divulge their personal life to the public. Expression cannot be argued to include a violent dissection of another person’s private affairs but can only be described as being a disdainful means to make cheap money.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

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ruption levels since 2003. Transparency International reported that 56% of those interviewed in the country admitted to paying a bribe in 2010.

Iraq also holds the dubious honour of being the most dangerous country for journalists with more than twice the number of journalist fatalities than the second placed Philippines.

In an unfortunate turn of events, the fundamentalist groups, such as AlQaeda, that Hussein strongly clamped down on are now to the fore of the sectarian violence between the Shia majority and Sunni minority. It is feared that this sectarianism may drag Iraq into another mire and lead to a complete collapse in a government that is already straining under the pressure.

The State executed around 130 people in the last year, including 21 in one day, and there are widespread allegations of unfair trials and the torture of prisoners.

This is not to say there is no hope for

Iraq. In a recent report in the Financial Times students in Bagdad are described as enjoying open access to the internet and satellite television, and in university there does not appear to be any great animosity between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Meanwhile the country’s rich oil reserves and natural gas reserves could see a strong improvement in the economy.

Ultimately however, Iraq is a country still to find its feet following years of repression and occupation. There is much work to be done and the modest progress made in recent years cannot be undone by a descent into further sectarianism. Do not expect Iraq to disappear from the headlines in the future with fears that the political situation may degenerate even more. Closer to home in the UK, the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War is due to be published later this year. The whole story isn’t over yet.

ment. The public know what to expect each time they enter into the Faustian pacts. By voting for Fine Gael in 2011, the public were saying they didn’t want different economic policies than the ones of Fianna Fail. They just wanted them implemented with fewer brown envelopes and in a less self-satisfied manner. And they wanted to punish Fianna Fail. That’s all Irish elections are. We relinquish complete control and any semblance of real democracy, to the Government and every five years we get to punish or reward them. The faces do change, but the policies and the politics remain the exact same.

32% of voters declared themselves undecided and this suggests a high level of disillusionment with the established political parties. The greatest advantage for the current parties is the lack of choices for the Irish electorate.

Sinn Fein is still regarded by most other parties as politically toxic and historical partisanship means a Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition is highly unlikely in the near future. If Fine Gael could not secure a majority during the biggest economic crisis in the State’s history then it is unlikely it will ever do so in future.

Whilst Fianna Fail is currently seeing a resurgence in the polls, it seems equally unlikely that they will secure

a single party government in the near future given their incompetence over the past decade. This leaves Labour in coalition with either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail as the most likely outcome in the near future. This potentially leaves them with a great bargaining position as a king-maker, with the opportunity to greater influence the programme for government. However, 46% of those surveyed also felt there was a need for a new political party.

Michael McDowell has often intimated that he feels such a party is needed and it is not inconceivable that Fintan O’Toole, Eamon Dunphy, David McWilliams et al could revive their proposed ‘Democracy Now’ movement. The emergence of a new political party is the greatest threat to the future of the Labour party, as any new party with a high profile would hope to capitalise on the high degree of voter disillusionment and apathy. McDowell has also advocated the emergence of a new centre-right party and should such a party emerge, it is eminently possible that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail would view it as a more viable coalition partner than Labour. Kingmaker or alienated irrelevance, the future of the Labour party depends greatly on the actions of others.

Iraq: Ten Years On Ten years after the Iraq War began, Fergus Carroll examines a country still struggling to find its feet

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his year, on Tuesday March 19th, a wave of bombings hit Baghdad, killing 56 and wounding 200. The fact that this attack occurred on the tenth anniversary of the 2003 invasion is not believed to be a coincidence. Following such an event one cannot avoid asking the questions of what state the country is in today and of whether an end to the bloodshed is imminent.

In March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched and a coalition force led by the United States invaded Iraq with the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power and destroying the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to be in possession of. Less than a month later, Bagdad fell to coalition forces and on May 1st President Bush declared victory. Despite this,

“Unfortunately the removal of Saddam Hussein from power has not lead to a strong, democratic government ... reports claim that there is no real difference in corruption levels since 2003”

weapons of mass destruction were never found and a recent BBC Panorama report has even suggested there was intelligence at the time that no such weapons existed. It would take eight years for the last of the coalition forces to leave the country.

Over the following years, news headlines chiefly concerned the trial and subsequent execution of Saddam Hussein and the very legality of the war itself. However, despite a rising level of insurgency against the coalition forces, Iraq was largely overshadowed by the conflict in Afghanistan and, more recently, by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Indeed the bloodiest battle during the occupation came in 2004 with the second Battle for Fallujah, where US Marines fought insurgents rather than forces of Hussein’s regime over a two month period of November and December. Around 1,200 insurgents and 800 civilians were killed with 100 coalition troops perishing too. The consequences of this conflict are still being felt today, with a huge jump in birth defects and a rise in cancer levels in the area and other regions that saw a high level of military operations.

The occupation of Iraq by coalition forces is largely considered to have been a failure, or at least a missed opportunity. It is estimated the US spent $60 billion, together with the deaths of 4,400 US Servicemen. In a report published earlier this month by an American auditor, it is claimed this rebuilding fund achieved little. The Iraqi Prime Minister concurred, saying that the money had been misspent.

There is no doubt that Iraq has come a long way since the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but the statistics still point towards a country that has a long way to go. The Iraq Body Count organisation claims that in 2012 alone

4,571 civilians were killed, in itself a large decrease from the years of 2006 and 2007. January 2007 alone saw an average of 981 deaths per week. This brings the overall casualties since the invasion to a figure between 112,000 and 122,500 while a further 2.7 million have been become refugees due to the turmoil leading the organisation to conclude that “the country remains in a state of low level war”. Such a scenario is inconceivable in the western world.

That is not to say there have been no improvements recently. The country’s life expectancy rates have improved from 58 to 69 years and the number of those receiving an education and access to food has also rise.

Unfortunately the removal of Saddam Hussein from power has not lead to a strong, democratic government. It can be no easy task to manage a country with the levels of sectarian violence highlighted above but reports claim that there is no real difference in cor-

Fruits of our Labour With the latest polls showing declining support for the Labour Party, much of the media is predicting its demise. Robert Ranson looks at the party’s future

T

he latest Sunday Independent/Millward Brown opinion poll shows Labour’s support has fallen into the single digits at 9%.

This figure is less than half the vote achieved by the party just over two years ago in the 2011 General Election.

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media has reacted hysterically, forecasting a continued and permanent decline for the coalition’s junior partner. The Sunday Independent even put the story on the front page under the headline “FF romps into lead as Labour implodes”.

It then devoted two articles to the poll inside the paper, arguing such radically differing viewpoints as: “Labour on the edge of the political abyss”, and “Waves of discontent washing over Gilmore”.

“The reality is the average share of the vote achieved by the Labour party across all General Elections in the history of the State is 11.7%. That the party stands at 9% midway through a term in which it governs during a recession is hardly surprising”

Given that the Independent increasingly resembles a polemic rather than a newspaper, the lack of an opposing viewpoint should not be surprising. Much of the sensationalist media seems to prefer to creating news rather than reporting it and as such it is not surprising that they would frame this poll as signifying a crisis for the Labour Party. The reality is the average share of the vote achieved by the Labour party across all General Elections in the history of the State is 11.7%. That the party stands at 9% midway through a term in which it governs during a recession is hardly surprising.

Seemingly, Labour has lost the votes it gained at from Fianna Fail’s implosion at the last election. Those voters who left Fianna Fail, yet couldn’t bring themselves to vote Fine Gael. These voters have swelled the ranks of the largest grouping that emerged from the polls, that most elusive of voter, the “Don’t Knows”. A mammoth 32% of respondents reported that they “did not know” who they would vote for were they to be given the opportunity in the near future.

Labour is likely not losing its core vote but is demonstrating that it cannot hold onto the votes gained from Fianna Fail in the last general election.

Therefore, it is not so much that we are facing the death of The Labour Party, but we are perhaps seeing the death of their hope to become a genuine third force in Irish politics. They continue to rely on their core vote but seem unable to expand much further. When voters abandon the familiar ships of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael and clamber onto the lifeboats of Labour, it is never long before they leap back into the sea and wait for the ship with the most appealing ladder.

Labour’s fundamental problem is that they suffer for their virtues. Al-

ways the minor party in coalition, like a Shakespearean tragic hero, their strengths become their weaknesses.

They are a party guided by ideology.

The proclaim to be the defenders of equality and fairness, but when these concepts seem to be in short supply in Government the Labour party is the one blamed. When the Government cuts services, it is Labour that receives the most criticism. The cries insist they should be doing more to temper Fine Gael’s more malevolent notions. However, there is always a central fallacy in these arguments. Would the situation be better or worse without Labour in Government? Would the cuts to services have been greater had Fine Gael been granted single-party government?

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael do not pretend to be anything more than vehicles for naked ambition and self-advance-

8

FEATURES

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Observer Features Placing Blame features@universityobserver.ie

With the recent Steubenville rape case revealed a bias in the media against the victim by sympathising with her rapists, Laura Woulfe examines the role of the media in generating social prejudices

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ast month, high-school football players Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, were found guilty of raping an unconscious 16-yearold girl in the town of Steubenville, Ohio on the night of August 11th 2012.

Numerous offences occurred over a period of six hours, when the girl, referred to in the media as ‘Jane Doe’, was dragged from party to party while being sexually abused unknowingly to her, as bystanders observed, photographing and filming the countless violations.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the case however, is the initial response from the media, in particular CNN’s Poppy Harlow who placed her sympathy with the perpetrating “star football players” of the crime rather than with the victim. UCD Students’ Union Gender Equality Co-ordinator Ciara Johnson commented: “The rapists were held accountable for their actions, yet the media sympathise with them and lament the fact that their once bright futures have been ruined.

Rapists are not victims, why are we sympathising with them?”

The media focused on the loss of Richmond and Mays’ bright futures with little concern for the prospective future of ‘Jane Doe’. The revelation that male futures and careers are still

considered more important than their female peers’ highlights the blatant sexism that still exists in the media. As said by Johnson: “The media definitely plays a large role in influencing society’s perceptions of gender roles. So often women are portrayed as homemakers and housewives who exist to serve the needs of their husband or partner and men are shown to be the dominant in relationships and the breadwinner…

Just because you are a woman it doesn’t mean you’re a sexual object.”

Dr Sara O’Sullivan, whose main areas of research include media and gender, commented on the subject saying: “I wouldn’t make any generalisation about mass media...but there is no denying parts of the mass media have very problematic representations of both men and women in terms of how masculinity and femininity are represented and the power of that.”

AP, USA Today and Yahoo all focused on the victim’s intoxication level on the night of August 11th, without referencing whether the convicted rapists were drunk or not. “It is not viewed as “feminine” to drink large amounts whereas it is seen macho to drink pints and large quantities of alcohol,” says Johnson. In the trial Walter Madison, Richmond’s representative, stated; “The reality is, she drank, she has a reputation for telling lies,” even despite the large

amounts of visual evidence, such as photographs, video recordings and text messages, proving the cases of sexual assault against ‘Jane Doe.’ Is this to say the victim is not worthy of our trust because of her blood alcohol content while the perpetrators level of intoxication is irrelevant?

Yet, it has also been argued that the case is not only prejudice on account of gender but also in relation to societal class. “I think this case was more prejudiced in relation to class. While there was also sexism involved…I think the idolisation of the football players played a greater part in the prejudice involved in this small town case,” said Johnson.

Arguably, this feeds into a prevalent “Jock Culture” whereby these teenage athletes are held in such high-esteem by their school, peers, community and indeed media and popular culture, that they are endowed with a sense of superiority above everyone else. This is seen as the cause to why many citizens of Steubenville aligned themselves with reporters like Harlow, sympathising with the victims, while two young girls made threatening comments to the victim via Twitter. “There seemed to be a perception that since these guys had such a bright future and had so much gunning for them that it couldn’t possibly be their fault,” said Johnson.

Broadcasters are certainly accountable for showing a prejudice against the victim during the Steubenville case however media is, according to Dr. O’Sullivan: “A two way relationship, it both creates and reflects influences”.

Therefore, as said by Johnson: “Ignorance and lack of respect for other genders causes more than just power distance but also leads to violence and a belief of superiority which isn’t easily erased… Media shapes society’s norms but we shape the media, so maybe it’s time to change what we think is acceptable.”

What many believe is at the heart of this case is the issue of rape culture which exists socially and therefore was reflected by the media. According to Dr. O’Sullivan: “They are doing a lot more in the commentary than just criticising it as sexist; they are talking about how this normalises a culture of rape.”

One of the most chilling aspects of the Steubenville rape case was that there were bystanders who observed, photographed and condoned the numerous sexual assault acts done unto the victim. These photos were then

CNN’s Poppy Harlow

Reforming the reformers As the Irish prison population rises, Yvanne Kennedy examines the need for reforming the system of incarceration

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rison is where the bad people go. Prisoners shouldn’t have rights. Those in prison are there for their own faults; they don’t deserve our sympathy. They don’t deserve any luxuries.

They definitely don’t deserve anything better than those ‘on the outside’ are allowed. These are all commonly held beliefs. As far as most people are concerned, the only way you end up in the Irish prison system, or any other for that matter, is because you have done something that has wronged society.

For that, you deserve to be punished.

Many have a “lock them up and throw away the keys approach”; most can’t understand how almost every prisoner only serves three-quarters of their sentence and they certainly can’t wrap their heads around the concept of open prisons. The issue here is that, for the most part, the general population tars the smaller, prison population with the same brush. Very few people find they are ‘liberal’ when it comes to penal reform but the data would suggest that unless we become somewhat ‘softer’ on those convicted of crimes, prisons as an ‘agent of reform’ become redundant and we create a group of ‘hardened’ individuals who wish to rebel against the system and end up right back where they started.

One of the large issues in many prisons both here and around the world is sanitation. Those in prison sleep, eat, live and then some in small cells potentially with one or two other people.

However these cells may very well also contain their ‘bathrooms’: sometimes, these are little more than glorified buckets which must be ‘slopped out’ into larger containers come morning.

This practice is not confined to some archaic system in countries hundreds of miles away but instead is routine for many of the men currently incarcerat-

“Staffing and facilities for [structured activities] have expanded in the last 30 years, increases have not, in general, matched the enormous surge in the prison population” Dr Kevin Warner Adjunct Professor UCD School of Social Science ed in Mountjoy Prison. How could it be said that this in any way helps those in prison, or those they have hurt?

Adjunct Professor in the UCD School of Social Science, Dr Kevin Warner also notes that while “staffing and facilities for [structured activities] have expanded in the last 30 years, increases have not, in general, matched the enormous surge in the prison population”. These activities such as sports, art and education are key to ensuring that those entering prison leave more calm, ready to re-enter general society and, in some situations, more educated and capable of finding employment.

If we hope that crime levels will decrease, along with prison numbers and that those still imprisoned will make

good use of the time the State has given them to repent and work on themselves, there needs to be change within the system itself because the system is not working. If we take it back to the point where we think about people who will be affected without good consideration and reform in this area, those who have been in prison will lose out but society as a whole has even more to benefit from if we move in the right direction with this.

Three ways that have been suggested by UCD School of Law Professor of Criminology, Ian O’Donnell to combat the growing number of those incarcerated in Ireland are temporary release (TR), reform of the parole system and the increased use of the remission system. These are all very possible, straightforward and low-cost, to the community as well as to the Government purse strings.

TR is a system that allows those in prison to be released from prison on humanitarian grounds where they need time with their families or are on vocational placements. This system reintroduces people to the community and into society. O’Donnell says that a “study of 19,955 releases from Irish prisons showed that prisoners who, during their sentences, were occasionally allowed to venture out … were significantly less likely to be re-imprisoned”.

So the system works, it’s not an idealistic concept. Parole is also another under-utilised resource within the criminal justice system. Parole in Ireland is only considered for those who have been sentenced to ‘life’ or to ‘longterm’ sentences of eight years or more.

However, when people are released on parole, they have the prospect of returning to prison over them the entire time until their sentence expires and those on parole have a tendency

sent around and shown to numerous other teens for their own amusement clearly illustrating how we’ve descended the existence of culture that condones rape. As said by Johnson: “We live in a rape culture where incidents like this are perceived as common and are so often dismissed. Constantly we hear of cases of slut shaming…People think that girls are easy if they wear a revealing outfit or have a drink too many. This is not okay. This should not happen, yet it’s become part and parcel of society today.”

to be quite well behaved. Therefore, O’Donnell is of the opinion that the parole system should be expanded.

In Finland, parole is available after 14 days, so why couldn’t be somewhat shorten the window here as well?

Finally, there is the prospect of increased remission. Right now, 25% of a person’s sentence is taken off for ‘good behaviour’. So if you receive a four year sentence, you should only serve three of those years. Good behaviour doesn’t mean anything sterling, it simply means that you don’t cause much trouble while you’re in prison with the power resting with the Governor of each prison whether an amount of that remission will be taken from you in the event of your misbehaving.

However, a crucial agent of reform

Mountjoy Prison

has been overlooked here. There is the possibility that up to 33% of a person’s sentence can be cut, if they willfully and properly engage with the extra services available to them in prison. These include the education and welfare services and may also extend to work done inside the prison such as working in the kitchens. This 33% is rarely, if ever, utilised. If a prisoner minds his own business for three years and does nothing to contribute, he will still get a 25% knock down but the very same happens if he engages with everything. So for many, where is the incentive?

There seem to be few excuses for non-implementation of these practices because when something is good for the prisoner, good for the community and good for the purse, why would it not go ahead? There seems to be no logic. The Minister for Justice wants to see those in prison reforming themselves but how can they do that when the system he has supported and implemented is far away from being reformed itself.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

FEATURES

9

United we fall With Croke Park II looking set to be introduced in the coming weeks, Sean Finnan examines the reaction of the Trade Union movement to the new deal

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round 100 years ago, pre-independence Dublin was caught in the upheaval of industrial dispute. Approximately 20,000 workers sought for the right to unionise. A century later, over 830,000 workers on the island of Ireland are members of a union. Yet, with Croke Park II proposing to further cut public sector worker pay, the fractured nature of certain unions, their varying strengths and influences is becoming clearer to public eye.

The argument of the Labour Relations Commission is that the continued deficit in the government’s day to day spending is inefficient and unmanageable. The proposals in Croke Park II seek to carry on where the previous agreement left off, reducing the Public Service pay bill by one billion euro by 2015. Measures proposed include a reduction in overtime rates, increase of working week, compulsory exits and pay cuts for public sector workers. Unsurprisingly, workers have met these proposals with anger and resistance. Last week, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) became the first union to reject Croke Park II with other unions such as Irish Medical Organisation, Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and UNITE all supporting a No vote amongst their members.

One group that has formed in opposition to the negotiating outcomes of Croke Park II is the Kerry Alliance for Public Sector Workers. Martin O’Grady, spokesperson for the group, commented on the proposed agreement saying: “Public sector workers are extremely angry at the impositions on them, the intended impositions on them and the repeated impositions on them. There’s a very positive response to our efforts to unify people in resistance. So yes, we’re able to get something like 200 people at a protest at short notice in the middle of Tralee the other week and we had 70 or 80 at another protest on Monday and these were all end of work protests in the evening, protesting at the constituency offices of representatives who are part of the government parties.”

The KAPSW is an alliance for all Public Sector workers, regardless of their Trade Union. With SIPTU, Ireland’s largest Trade Union, advocating a Yes vote amongst its members and IMPACT, the largest Public Sector union doing the same, there is more than just a murmuring of discontent among grassroots members of these particular

Unions directed towards their leadership.

“Total destruction of the Trade Union movement if they continue to get their way in this respect because what will happen of course is, as people realise that being a member of a Trade Union means nothing at all,” says O’Grady. “The purpose of course of being a member of a trade union is to be in a position to collectively withhold labour if the price of the labour isn’t right or if the deal isn’t perceived as fair and that’s especially essential in the context of a monopoly employer where you have got no opportunity, no labour market, no such thing as being able to shop around for better conditions, or better pay which is of course is the circumstances of all public sector workers. In those circumstances, you absolutely need a trade union and once people realise that the Trade Unions serve no purpose that they don’t organise to protect their members, people will simply abandon the trade union movement.”

However, negotiating with a government healthy in its numbers and severe pressure from outside financial institutions means that the negotiating process was always going to be onerous.

On the document released by the Labour Relations Commission, they emphasise that “The Commission is clear that the alternative to a negotiated outcome is a set of measures designed by the Government and delivered through legislation.” This threat of legislation without discussion happened previously in the introduction of the much-hated universal social charge, pension levies back in the 2008 budget.

“The thing that an awful lot of people forget is, when Fianna Fail, the Green Party, introduced the wage cuts and the pension levy, and all those cuts... They were introduced unilaterally,” says John Geary, Professor of Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the UCD School of Business.

“The Croke Park agreement, if you like, was a recognition of that. But essentially what the unions want to do is they want to re-establish collective bargaining, so the danger was, if they hadn’t gone with Croke Park II, it would be imposed unilaterally. Now that to me seems like a very significant threat to the face of collective bargaining in the public sector, which is the work of union power if you like and so that, I think has gone over a lot of commentators heads. It has happened once that they were marginalised; they weren’t going to let it happen again. So even though it’s what we call a

“The majority of them probably admit that there is no way that a better deal could have been done in the circumstances, and they also have friends and family working in the private sector and they know that things are difficult there” Professor John Geary industrial relations and human resources ucd school of business

formal concession bargaining it is still bargaining, and there were some sweeteners, and it was softened around the edges.”

For many however, the close relationship that exists between certain Trade Unions and government parties is a conflict of interest undermining the negotiating drive of the union. Current leader of SIPTU, Jack O’Connor is a long-standing member of the Labour Party, serving on its executive committee. Also funding various electoral campaigns of a number of Labour TDs, relationships between those in government and those representing workers interests are uncomfortably close. For O’Grady, the “main obstacle entirely is the acquiescence of trade union leaders, specific trade union leaders in the whole process. If they hadn’t been captured in effect by the government side, none of this would have arisen. The idea that public servants should pay a special price over and above that paid by the community at large, equivalently paid or far better paid individuals in other sectors of the economy would never have gotten traction but for the fact that we have traitors within the camp and they’re leading trade unions.”

Professor Geary, however, offers an alternative view of the stance being taken by O’Connor in the recent negotiations. “Jack O’Connor has said no, to not take on the government, it is not the time to take on the European establishment either. I mean the force that is mounted against the unions is immense. In the past, because the government themselves were party to an agreement, we had what we call a political exchange. A deal was done, it was brokered. Now the unions are not brokering a deal say with the government. They’re brokering a deal with an institution if you like, or an apparatus, who is not beholden to any democratic values, who doesn’t have to receive any exchange with… the ballot box, or with unions through collective bargaining. So it’s very easy for unions to be marginalised. Their judgement is now is not the time to pick the fight, because the forces amassed against them are overwhelming. There’s also the issue if you like of, if ever they were to take strike action, it would alienate public opinion, its already styled towards unions. The last thing I think the unions want to do is to further alienate whatever support there might be out there.”

The threat of strike action then in the face of a possible rejection of Croke Park II, could serve to damage and divide the already apparent divide between workers in the public sector and private sector workers. The notion of what belonging to a Union means to individual workers has fundamentally changed since the days of Jim Larkin and with this, comes a problem of active participation of membership. Unions are seen as more

“Current leader of SIPTU, Jack O’Connor is a longstanding member of the Labour Party”

about the leadership committee’s decisions on the direction that they take than the members own desired direction. Croke Park II brings this division highly into focus. Has the Social Partnership of the past few decades sterilized the threat of action of a bellicose Trade Union movement through their repeated gains? Conor McCann of UCD’s Department of Social Justice explains that “There is a growing awareness of what partnership really did and that is a change… I don’t think in the trade unions themselves that they quite realised just what happened with partnership. I mean partnership consolidated the whole kind of managerial view that you’re there to manage workers. “ “That’s not really what trade unions are about, I mean, they’re really about trying to represent workers, not to manage them and they kind of fell in to that. That in itself is not a new thing. I mean in the history of the Irish Trade Union movement, that very Corporatist view runs through it, that kind of Catholic social teaching view, that goes back to the 1930s, the 1920s even, you know. So partnership was kind of building upon that but it was a new one because it was coming in at a time when the Irish economy was being heavily financialised. That’s the big difference.”

“I think the problem in inverted commas for unions has been, is that increasingly over recent decades the membership has become very passive,” says Geary. “Agreements, wage increases, tax reductions, have been a gift of social partnership, and people find it difficult to see that unions have negotiated this for them. That in turn has… a very kind of passive union movement, whereby union officials come in and do the deals, if there are deals to be done. So, while there might be upset from time to time, as you’ll see now, it tends to be isolated, it tends to be parochial. The majority of union members are passive, the majority of them will acquiesce, the majority of them probably admit that there is no way that a better deal could have been done in the circumstances, and they also have friends and family working in the private sector and they know that things are difficult there.”

The murmuring swells at the grassroots level of many diverse unions around the country suggests small changes are occurring in how people view their union. The open meetings around the country, filling local town halls are suggesting that there is a realisation that membership to a union is more about a yearly subscription. The prospect of further cuts and the continued loss in standards of public services is ensuring that workers are not just fighting for their wage but to preserve a working public service. Trade Unions are not just about fighting for their own members pay packets and when selfishness and division creeps into their search for demands, everyone suffers.

“Any Trade Union is hopefully also a citizen or a participant in this country as well. I mean any Trade Unionists who clocks in and out of a kind of social activity as if it’s their job, doesn’t get Trade Unionism. It cannot just be about wages and working conditions. This is the centenary of 1913 and the lock out, I mean Larkin understood that completely and Larkin was a lot smarter than he is given credit for… he said if you stick to work, to wages and the working conditions, they will wipe you out.”

10

SCIENCE & HEALTH

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Observer Science

Everything does not give you cancer Amid all the near-weekly reports of our favourite foods being proved as carcinogenic, Michael O’Sullivan asks how legitimate these claims really are

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ancer is a word that strikes fear into the heart of many.

Even though survival rates are at an all time high, we still don’t have a foolproof cure for the disease and will go to great lengths to avoid getting it. Enter the anti-cancer health foods.

First example: the tomato. Tomatoes get their red colour from a chemical called lycopene, a chemical that has been shown to help prevent cancer developing. Tomatoes must, therefore, be good to eat should you be at risk of contracting cancer. One problem, the amount of lycopene in a single tomato is relatively low. If we were to take concentrated tomato products like ketchup or tomato paste however, the lycopene content increases dramatically. Therefore; eating ketchup prevents cancer.

Then we have red meat, which is often linked with cancer. Before you spit your bacon double cheeseburger out in disgust, let us point out that red meat has benefits too. It is a fantastic source of iron, which we need lest our blood turn blue and we die from oxygen deprivation. Yet we still have studies that tout the dangers associated with red meat and its apparent link to cancer.

The obvious conclusion then, is to eat steak with ketchup. Then you won’t get cancer, right?

Every week, we are presented with more and more studies telling us that almost every item of food we consume is either cancer-causing, or cancerpreventing. While these studies may have found trends that link these foods to cancer, how can it be that almost

every food we eat has been linked to cancer in some way shape or form? Not only that, but our environment is apparently almost even worse for giving people cancer. Airborne heavy metals, mobile phone radiation, the foam in couch cushions, rug fibres, deodorants and various shampoos have all been reported to be carcinogenic.

Were we to take every study we read verbatim, we would have to enclose ourselves in a bubble and refuse all forms of outside contact, and let’s not forget; the materials the bubble is made from should be heavily studied for their carcinogenic properties. The proliferation of these alarmist studies is a symptom of our health conscious society and shock-media tactics. Scientists themselves have noticed this and are starting to turn a critical eye onto themselves.

“Researchers often test many different foods at once in their studies and then choose which findings to highlight after the fact, which exaggerates the significance of their findings,” said Doctor Jonathan D. Schoenfeld, of the Harvard School of Public Health.

It would appear that scientists have been reporting results that are barely statistically significant as hard boiled fact. So that egg you’re eating right now has definitely been linked to cancer, just in a percentage of cases so low, it’s completely insignificant. This practice is now so widespread, it borders on farcical.

Randomly selecting 50 ingredients from “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book,” Schoenfeld and colleague

Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford scoured scientific literature for articles evaluating the cancer risk of everything from mustard to orange juice.

They found that other researchers had published papers touting either cancer risk or prevention benefits for 40 of these randomly selected ingredients (bay leaves and thyme have, as of yet, evaded scrutiny). But when Schoenfeld and Ioannidis looked more carefully, many of the studies “spuriously highlight results that barely achieve statistical significance.”

That’s a huge number of foodstuffs that have been linked to cancer, and there are people who, unfortunately, will believe every one of the studies they read about to be solid, life-changing fact and will go to great lengths to avoid these apparent carcinogenic foods, leaving themselves with nothing but minor salads for their diet.

Why is it that scientists are so eager to report minor statistics as major results? Are they banding together in a global conspiracy sponsored by a giant food conglomerate to force you into only eating leaves and berries? Well, probably not. The far more likely answer is that scientists need funding for their research. No funding, no research, no work. In order to ensure that they receive more funding and stay in a job, it would appear scientists have

been selectively reporting their results to ensure they secure money to continue their work. Can we blame them?

To a certain extent, no. The nature of scientific research is that it requires money, and money is hard enough to come by without having to convince a funding approval board that your work is more significant and more deserving of money than the project that gives monkeys telepathy; but the practice of misrepresenting results has become so widespread that it’s beginning to affect the everyday lives of ordinary, less informed people who are terrified of contracting life changing illnesses.

So what do we take from this sea of tweaks and twiddles? Cancer itself is caused when cells in your body fail to replicate properly and build up into a

“Tomatoes get their red colour from a chemical called lycopene, a chemical that has been shown to help prevent cancer developing”

Shedding light on the brain With current treatments for epilepsy and Parkinson’s relying on surgery and drugs, Dwayne Byrne examines the advantages of Optogenetics in human healthcare

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ince Watson and Crick sequenced the genome, genetics has dominated in biological research over the last number of decades, but with the mass availability of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), neuroscience has shot forward dominating many of the headlines of the past decade or so. With the recent emergence of optogenetics, the knowledge gained through genetics can now be applied to helping neuroscientists discover the various brain-region functions never before understood.

Optogenetics is the combination of

optical techniques and genetic modification which allows selected neurons to be activated on the flash of a light.

A specific gene sequence is placed into the DNA of a neuron, which results in the expression of a protein facilitating the production of photoreceptive ion channels on the neuron’s surface. This channel, which responds by opening when a light is shone in the brain, allows ions to flow into the neuron causing an electrical signal to fire down along the cell and in turn activating a pathway in the brain.

Professor Miesenbӧck, University of Oxford, winner of the 2013 Brain

solid mass. While it’s true that this process can be brought on by environmental and dietary factors, the fact remains that the main causes of cancer are bad luck and genetic predisposition.

In other words, nothing we know of can completely prevent cancer, but we do know that taking simple steps like not smoking, binge drinking or frying yourself under the heat of the sun can help increase your chances of avoiding the disease.

In summary; everything in moderation. By avoiding swathes of foodstuffs you are probably doing your body more harm than good. Don’t believe everything you read, just try and keep yourself relatively healthy. What will come, will come, and eating only green beans and tomatoes isn’t going to prevent it.

Award for his work in optogenetics, was the first scientist to show optogenetic control in 2002. In this experiment, Miesenbӧck showed that particular groups of neurons could be precisely controlled, when light was shone on the brain of flies, whose skulls are thin enough for exterior light to penetrate and activate photosensitive receptors on their neurons without affecting neighbouring neurons. The beauty of optogenetics says Miesenbӧck is that “there are no high-tech gismos here just biology revealed through biology”.

This new neuroscience technique allows scientists to understand the complex pathways and systems involved in cognitive processes, especially those in humans. 2004 saw a major movement in Optogenetics, by Ed Boyden, a then graduate student and Karl Deisseroth, who was starting his own lab in Stanford University. The pair along with some collaborators, showed how they could use a protein, called channelrhodopsin-2, taken from green algae, to ge-

Professor Gero Miesenbӧck

netically modify neurons using a gene therapy vector (such as a virus) to produce the photoreceptive channel and activate it with the use of optical fibres implanted in the brain of mammals.

The activation of the channel causes it to change in conformation so that the channel will open allowing ions to flow in and an electrical charge flow down the neuronal cell, Boyden and Deisseroth showed that this process enabled them to control the excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission of the genetically modified neurons “yielding a widely applicable tool for neuroscientists and biomedical engineers”. Previous attempts at optogenetics had only been carried out in vitro, Boyden and Deisseroth were the first to carry out optogenetics experiments so precisely in living mammals.

Optogenetics enables scientists to control brain pathways, instead of just observing the activity and then ascribing function to certain types of neurons. By watching what the mammal does and seeing what neurons fire, scientists can now activate a specific area of the brain and then see what happens.

Optogenetics is currently being tested, tweaked and enhanced in labs worldwide, with hope that its international development will lead to the use of optogenetics in humans. With the potential to treat debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s and epilepsy this could be a major improvement on current treatment methods for neurological disorders, which only ease patient’s symptoms. Crucially, it allowed the control of neurons by shining light from an optical fibre without altering the normal function of these neurons when the blue light is not on.

Neurons are like minute computers which receive inputs from thousands of other neurons and then compute their own output. This is going on right now as you read this article, and will continue while you eat your dinner later, or even while you are sleeping.

Cells such as basket cells, which are inhibitory (they prevent neighbouring cells from firing), are known to waste away in disorders like schizophrenia.

Other neurons like pyramid cells are excitatory but are thought to be over-

“This principle gives us great hope for possible future treatments of devastating disorders of the brain” active in epilepsy. Current drugs alleviate symptoms but none have been able to cure any of the brain disorders that most commonly affect humans.

Surgical treatments, like the removal of small parts of the brain in disorders like epilepsy, are not only irreversible but are not guaranteed to be 100% effective and are associated with major risk factors. Optogenetics is proving to be a potential treatment for epilepsy; “Inhibition of epileptiform activity has been demonstrated” claims Robert S. Fisher in his 2012 paper on treatments of epilepsy but, as with all forms of optogenetics, its “use in humans will require more work”.

Reward centres in the brain have been targeted for discovery as these centres which are thought to be major contributors in drug addiction, learning and depression. If these centres could be inhibited in drug addicts, the drugs they use would be less effective and thus less desirable for the addict.

Boyden carried out experiments on the reward centres of mice, which demonstrated that the activation of pleasure centres within the brain can drive learning in mice. This may have a major application in those with learning difficulties, rewarding learning will make it less boring and hopefully less tedious.

It is still early days for the treatment of humans using optogenetics but this principle gives us great hope for possible future treatments of devastating disorders of the brain but may also allow scientific discoveries which may uncover some details about ourselves, our emotions and even our personalities that we have not understood to date.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

SCIENCE & HEALTH

Research and Arrested Development Despite the Irish Government’s continued promotion of ‘a smart economy’, science continues to suffer the austerity imposed by budget cuts. Emily Longworth asks if the recent removal of Ireland’s Chief Scientific Advisor may be a step backwards

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n October 26th of last year, a press release from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment announced the Government’s move to abolish the position Chief Scientific Advisor, by merging the role with that of the Director General of Science Foundation Ireland.

Although the seemingly inoffensive change made little impact to the average newsreader, select members of the scientific community were astounded and outraged by the decision, and it has reignited much criticism towards the Government’s poor prioritising of research funding.

The former position of Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) was a stand-alone role which served as an independent authority, giving advice to the Government while liaising with the Cabinet Committee on Science Technology and Innovation. The CSA served to provide high-level advice on issues of concern, and to give continued input into the Government’s Strategy for Science.

By consolidating this job with the role of Science Foundation Ireland’s head advisor, many Irish scientists have claimed there is an inherent conflict of interest. When the same people are responsible for developing Irish Science Policy as those assessing it, their motivations can become compromised.

This is the fear of many Irish research and development scientists, who think that the badly-informed policy of consolidating the roles will diminish future job opportunities for graduates, as well undermining certain aspects of science investment. Stephen Sullivan, Chief Scientific Officer at the Irish Stem Cell Foundation and UCD lecturer, outlines the detrimental effects this move will have on the science community: “Lack of good policy will cost Ireland dearly in terms of jobs for graduates in the years to come. The key point is that many science policy issues (such as stem cell legislation) won’t generate a short term benefit for politicians at the polls, that does not mean these points should be ignored. They are having a profound effect on the national science environment and will be important to the kinds of R&D investment and jobs this country can attract and create in the coming years”

“When the same people are responsible for developing Irish Science Policy as those assessing it, their motivations can become compromised”

While the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton has made claims that the consolidation is a means of “a wider drive for reform and greater efficiency”, most of those in the scientific community have interpreted the move as another neglectful compromise made in the Government’s Scientific Strategy. In the last decade, we have endlessly been told of plans to boost Ireland’s smart economy, while every political party boast a policy that puts emphasis on science ‘innovation’ and ‘advancement’. But in the practical reality of these promises, very poor effort has been made to tune into the needs of the research sector.

“We are good at generating reports, but not at implementing them. The connection between investment in research and better outcomes for patients and public health has not yet been accepted,” says Professor Dermot Kellaher, of Trinity College Dublin. “The health service seems as reluctant as ever to recognise that research is one of the core functions of healthcare and to make the necessary organisational changes to allow health research to flourish.”

He is not the only person to question the State’s commitment to science.

UCD’s Professor Bill Powderly has also spoken out against the Government’s poor policies regarding research and development, and his exasperation

with the cuts to funding provoked him into resignation in October of last year. In this way, it is no surprise that so many Irish scientists are dismayed with the resolve of the Government to remove the role of scientific advisor.

According to most, the abolished CSA position undermines Ireland’s international credibility in the scientific field, which has been described as a “bewildering and illogical” conflict of interests by one commentator.

While the UK has a team of independent scientific advisors to assist Government decisions, and the EU only recently established a similar position, the removal of Ireland’s CSA office is perceived to be a significant step backwards. In particular, the consolidation of the role will not be a hybridised and efficient role-consolidation, so much as it will be a clash of positions. There are the initial practical limitations for the director of SFI, Professor Mark Ferguson, to maintain his regular workload while assuming the responsibilities of Scientific Advisor.

Additionally, many scientists have outlined the gaping differences between the two jobs. There is an inherent hypocrisy in appointing a civil servant, a subsidiary of the government, to a position whose basis is that of an independent voice. It seems unreasonable to expect a person who is charged with enacting Government policy to exercise complete independence in how they advise that Government.

The Medical Research Charity Group have also publicly questioned this conflict of interest, fearing that important funding could be undermined.

“The Government can pick and choose who it is to be advised by” says Stephen Sullivan “Where is the assurance that political expediency will not be a stronger consideration than development of a good national science policy?”

Seán Sherlock, Minister of State for Research and Innovation, has dismissed the backlash to the decision as “a storm in an eggcup”, and he denied the role of the CSA as a policy-maker, instead insisting that the Government was the only authority on putting forward new policies. He described the controversy that followed the decision as a “non-issue”, which comes as a surprise to many, including the Medical

Research Charity Group, who pointed out that Sherlock’s lack of a scientific background mitigates his understanding of the issue.

“A Minister is only as good as his advisors,” says Sullivan “If Minister Sherlock is only thinking politically, and not in scientific policy terms, how is a solid national Science policy likely to emerge? Even from an economic perspective, Forbes have questioned Ireland’s move in deciding to allow its Government to advise itself in such a way.”

This again correlates to the negative implications that the decision has for graduate employment. “The Government are not dealing with basics like a good governance structure (focus, transparency, accountability and clarity) and a national bioethics structure (our previous Government closed Council of Bioethics). This disorder and non-transparency scares away many Research and Development investors and thus jobs for graduates” says Stephen Sullivan.

The loss of Ireland’s Independent Scientific Advisor has added to the growing loss of confidence in the Government’s ability to tune into the importance of science funding. As stated by the Medical Charity Research Group, ‘although this move may make things easier for the politicians, public and civil servants, it results in a decrease in transparency and accountability that will hurt Irish Research’.

But for Stephen Sullivan, and most third-level science staff and students, recouping funds in Research and Development is not a function of the Government’s science policy. For the state to follow through on all its promises of a smart economy, it needs to immediately change its approach to science funding. There has been growing pressure on Seán Sherlock to reverse the decision and re-instate the office, and students from scientific backgrounds are encouraged to contact the minister to express their concern. Stephen Sullivan hopes that with enough support the role of Chief Scientific Advisor could be salvaged: “Despite the austerity, we must double down and fight for the Nation’s scientific integrity. I believe we have come too far to slip back.”

“Richard Bruton has made claims that the consolidation is a means of ‘a wider drive for reform and greater efficiency’”

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research in Brief by emily longworth

Foot and Mouth vaccine developed A new synthetic vaccine has been produced by UK researchers which promises to effectively stop the slaughter of cattle herds infected with foot and mouth disease. The new vaccine formula allows vets to distinguish between infected animals and vaccinated animals.

The previous vaccine worked by injecting the deactivated form of the foot and mouth virus into cattle, whose immune system response produced the antibodies necessary to resist contraction of the live virus. This vaccine, although effective, rendered vaccinated cows indistinguishable from infected ones.

At the height of the pandemic in 2001, UK and Irish government officials chose not to opt for the old formula vaccine, and instead they sanctioned the slaughter of 6 million animals. This is largely owing to how the previous vaccine could not ensure meat traders that the cattle they bought was free of the disease.

The new vaccine is also more easily produced and transported than the older vaccine, bringing it within the reach of poorer countries. Although the vaccine may take up to seven years to pass the strict tests imposed by EU before it becomes available, it will be a definite breakthrough in the fight against the pandemic.

Artificially Intelligent Spider Web Recognition System Pioneered One of the greatest practical difficulties facing biodiversity tracking among small insects like arachnids has been effectively resolved with the invention of a new web-recognising technology.

Carlos Travieso in the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain has observed that spider webs are constructed in a species-specific way, this allows biologists to discern between species on the basis of their webs, which are as distinctive as the differences in handwriting biometrics in humans.

By compiling a library of images from spider experts in Costa Rica, Travieso’s team programmed a patternrecognition using principle component analysis (this being the method that allows most visual information to be captured in an image). This system gave them a 99.6% species-recognition accuracy, which is hugely effective compared to former manual efforts in species-counting.

This automated counting of spider species can serve as an invaluable tool for biodiversity and environmental researchers, since spiders are present across multiple ecosystems, and their population numbers can hugely influence the different species populations around them.

Drug-Resistant TB strains effect DCU students

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton

Although reports of Tuberculosis (TB) cases in Ireland have been in decline since the HSE Protection Surveillance Centre began taking close count in 1998, the recent global scares of a multidrug resistant TB strain outbreak have extended to Ireland in the last few months. Two non-contagious cases of the disease were reported from the 150 people tested in DCU in the last eight weeks. The cases are reportedly “not a threat” to public health, although they come at a time of international concern in the fight against the spread of Tuberculosis.

The recently-diagnosed incidences of multi-drug resistant TB strains (MDR TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB) have been a huge concern for health officials. WHO reports that 4% of new TB cases are the MDR TB strain, and that 20% of previously treated patients now have this form of TB. Among the 84 countries now infected with extensively drug-resistant TB, it is worst in India, southeast Asia and South Africa. Health officials are pressing international government to take immediate action against the new strains.

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GAEILGE

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Observer Gaeilge gaelige@universityobserver.ie

Faisean an Lá Inniu Labhraíonn Charlotte Ní Éatún ar na treochta faisean atá thart orainn faoi láithir

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e déanaí gach maidin a bhíonn orm mo chorp a tharraignt amach as an leaba, bím ag guigh le Dia ‘Lig dom an ghrian a fheiceáil inniu, lig dom an ghrian a fheiceáil inniu.’ Ach go dtí seo ní chuireann mo phaidreacha aon athrú ar an radharc a fheicim leasmuigh den fhuinneog.

Sneachta, gaoth agus baisteach. Gach lá.

Braithním ar mo bhríste sciota, mo ghúnaí, agus na t-léinte nár leag mé súil ar le cúpla míonna anuas, agus ba bhreá liom iad a chaitheamh, ach dá má rud é gur chaith mé iad i rith na haimsire seo, gheobhann niúmóine agus ní bheinn in ann an teach a fhagáil ar feadh tréimhse an-fhada.

Ach, níl an aimsir ag cuir isteach ar fhaisean cuile daoine anseo i UCD. Tá an chuid de na mic léinn ag siúil thart i t-léinte, seaicéad lethair, cairdeagan, agus tá riteoga go flúirseach i ngach áit!

Níl clú agam conas gur féidir le cáilíní na rudaí seo a chaitheamh nuair atá sé ag cur sneachta gach fiche nóiméad!

Bhain mé triail as mo éadaí faiseanta a chaitheamh i rith na seachtaine; gúna deas, riteoga (agus stocaí mar gheall ar an bhfuacht) agus cardigean deas dubh.

Ach faoi deireadh an lae bhí mé ag baint úsáid as mo sheaicéad mar bhlaincéad tharr mo chosa! Agus mar sin thit mé i mo chodladh ar ghualainn mo chara, ag cailiúnt amach ar cheann de mo ranganna. Ní smaoineamh maith é dom éadaí faiseanta a chaitheamh i rith an aimsire dona seo.

Tá cursaí faisean mar an chúis leis na mic léinn atá ag siúil thart gan mórán orthu ach sraith nó dhó d’éadaí.

Tuigim go mbímid ar fad ag iarraidh radharc maith a chuir orainn féin, go háirithe nuair atá muid ag freastal ar an gcoláiste mar gheall ar an méid daoine atá ann le éadaí deasa, agus freisin mar gheall ar na daoine atá suim againn iontu atá sa choláiste linn.

Ach, nuair a bhíonn cáilíní ag caitheamh brógaí arda agus tá an turlár clúdaithe le sneachta, ní féidir le daoine ach guigh dá sábháilteacht!

Dar leis an suíomh ‘marieclaire. com’ gur é an craiceann an treocht is mó an séasún seo leis an líne lipéid ‘tá craiceann isteach!’. I ngach siopa éadaí faoi láithir tá barréide bolg le feiceáil ar chuile seilf. Tá cinn ann nach dtaispeánann ach bun do bholg suas go dtí cinn nach bhfágann mórán chuig an tsamhlaíocht.

Is faisean iontach é do na cáilíní is na bean atá go hiomlán compordach lena gcoirp, agus atá figiúr maith acu agus féin muinín iontu féin. Ach fós féin níl sé mar an treocht cheart le caitheamh in Éirinn faoi láithir. Fós níl sin ag cuir stop le daoine iad a chaitheamh!

Rud eile atá ‘isteach’ sna treochta fhaisean ná chun píosaí den fhabraic in áiteanna éagsúla den phíosa éadach a bhaint. Na háiteanna is coitianta an fhabraic a scaradh ón bpíosa ná ar mhuinéal an earra, taobh an earra agus ar chúl an earra.

De gnáth cuireann sé go mór leis an bpíosa, ach uaireannta téann daoine thar fóir leis an ngearrachán agus tá níos mó den phíosa éadach gearrtha ná mar atá fágtha. An rud is measa faoi na faisean seo ná go mbíonn cáilíní óga á chaitheamh mar go ceapann siad gur an ‘rud le déanamh’ é.

Bíonn cáilíní óga ag leanúint a Mháthar, mná ar an teilifís agus a deirfiúracha atá níos sine ná iad féin.

Ní choir go mbeadh cáilíní níos lú ná an aois de sé bliana déag na treohta seo a chaitheamh. Níl a fhois acu cad atá á chaitheamh acu i ndáiríre, agus fiú nach rud ceart é páistí a ghleasadh cosúil le daoine fásta tá sé ag tarlúint ar aon nós.

Tá sé níos measa fós nuair a feictear daoine óga ag siúil thart gan mórán á chaitheamh acu. Is féidir liom súil daill a chuir orm nuair atá mo dheirfiúracha óga ag dul amach chuig discó in éadaí nach gcaithfinn féin riamh, ach nuair atá siad ag iarraidh siúil amach as an teach mar cáilín bóthair, caithfidh mé iad a ligint uaim, fiú mura maith liom.

Nílim a rá nach gcóir go caithfidh déagóirí nó daoine fásta na rudaí seo, ní aingeal mé féin sna héadaí a phiocam. Bíonn stocaí orm in ionad riteoga agus caithim sciortaí nach féidir leat a fheiceál faoi mo léinte uaireanta. Ach ní raibh na rudaí seo á chaitheamh agam go dtí gur chuaigh mé isteach sa cheathrú bhliain.

Agus fós ní chaithim na rudaí seo nuair atá sé ro-fuar leasmuigh.

Go pearsanta nuair a dhúisim agus feicim an bhaisteach tá sé deacair go leor orm mo mascára a chuir orm, gan smaoineamh faoi fheisteas deas a chuir le chéile.

Ní am gnéasach í nuair atá an aimsir fhuar seoann gach lá gan sos de lá nó dhó den ghrian a thabhairt dúinn, ach is féidir linn faic a dhéanamh ach fanacht go dtí go hathraíonn an aimsir. É sin, nó is féidir linn ar fad saoire mór a thabhairt sa Spáin, nó sa Mheirceá.

Gluais Guigh.............................................................................pray Bríste sciota...........................................................shorts Niúmóine..........................................................pneumonia Leathair................................................................leather Flúirseach.........................................................plentiful Sraith.........................................................................layer Treocht......................................................................trend Barréide bolg....................................................belly tops Bríste géine tainní......................................skinny jeans Feisteas....................................................................outfit Coitianta...............................................................popular Thar fóir.......................................................over the top I ndáiríre.................................................................really Cáilín bother..................................................prostitute Líne lipéis...............................................................tagline

University College Dublin

STUDENT CAPITAL FUND The Student Capital Fund is a sum of money arising from surplus funds generated in the operation of a number of student facilities and is administered by the Student Consultative Forum. Grants from the Fund are available strictly for capital projects and not for current funding. Applicants for grants are not confined to recognised clubs or societies.

Last year grants were awarded for equipment for student media, for the new reception area in the Students’ Union and for fencing for the Hurling pitches.

You are invited to apply for funding from the Student Capital Fund for this year. All applications or queries can be emailed to: Elizabeth.cronin@ucd.ie or sent by post to the Forum office, Student Centre, UCD, to arrive not later than Tuesday, 9 April 2013, 5pm.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

OPINION

Observer Opinion

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Postcards from Abroad: India As Pat de Brún’s time in Dharamsala comes to an end, he reflects on unforgettable experiences and teary goodbyes

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aving spent a month teaching English to Tibetan refugees, the time eventually came for me to leave Dharamsala, and I did so with a heavy heart. During my stay there I managed to have some incredible experiences that I know will stay with me for a long time to come.

A month is a relatively short time to spend volunteering, but the bonds I formed with some of the people I encountered make it feel as if I spent much longer there. I was accompanied to my bus by a variety of friends and students who came to see me off. When the teary goodbyes had been said and my bus pulled away, I couldn’t help but question whether moving on had been the right decision. Dharamsala felt like another home to me, and with that thought in mind, I reassured myself

“Dharamsala felt like another home to me, and with that thought in mind, I reassured myself that I would be back again and tried to turn my thoughts to the long road ahead”

that I would be back again and tried to turn my thoughts to the long road ahead.

The time I spent teaching gave me the opportunity to meet some incredible people, and one or two of them remained in my thoughts long after Dharamsala was out of sight. All of my teaching had been organised though one NGO, The Tibet Hope Centre, with the exception of one student, whom I decided to tutor outside of my official responsibilities. I first met Sanju when he was sitting on the side of the road in Dharamsala, asking passers-by if they would like to have their shoes fixed or cleaned. My shoes weren’t in particular need of repair on the day in question, but he invited me to sit with him and a brief chat turned into a full afternoon getting to know one another.

Sanju is 21 years old. He, like his father and grandfather before him, fixes shoes for a living. There was never a question that he would work at anything else, and he was similarly never given the opportunity to enter into any form of formal education. He picked up remarkably good spoken English due to a combination of an incredible hunger to learn and the necessity of attracting wealthy western customers, but he had never been taught to read or write. By the end of the day, we had agreed on a tutoring schedule for the month.

Each day, as we sat together at his usual spot on the road, we made some gradual inroads into his illiteracy, but it was hard work. His enthusiasm was unwavering however and we grew closer as the lessons progressed. After a few lessons, he invited me to meet his

family and to have dinner at his home in the slums outside Dharamsala. It was a huge honour to have been invited and I accepted without hesitation. On the day of our dinner, I travelled with Sanju in a tiny jeep on the 12km journey to the slums. The minuscule vehicle had 15 other slum-dwellers in it, and I’m sure we would have qualified for some sort of Guinness world record had the appropriate authorities been present.

The slum was an amalgamation of “tents”, which were essentially sheets of plastic propped up by wooden poles.

There was no electricity and two sources of running water. The houses had no floors and everywhere there was thick, acrid smoke smelling of kerosene and burning rubbish. The first thought to strike me was my own shame at having initially baulked at my own homestay accommodation, which I had previously considered extremely basic but now viewed as palatial.

Despite the undoubted difficulty of the living conditions there, the people I encountered visit mainly seemed happy, or at least equally as unhappy as the wealthy and privileged people I know. That being said, I have no intention of glamorising slum life and I did see many of the universal social problems that inevitably come about as a result of extreme poverty and inequality. It wasn’t the last time that I visited Sanju in the slums and it was incredible to be able to get to know his family and neighbours, and to get to know a little about the dynamics and realities of slum life. By the time Sanju’s lessons came to an end we had developed a genuine bond, and it was tough to see him disappear in the distance as I left Dharamsala behind. Like many volunteers, I left him with the feeling that he had taught me a lot more than I had taught him.

The next morning my bus arrived in Delhi, 500 kilometres by road but a mil-

The FirstYear Experience: Broken Homes

While some students may think growing up means leaving family worries behind, Lucy Montague Moffat talks about dealing with divorce as a grown-up child

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y Dad and Step-Mum are getting a divorce. I am finding this all very strange for a number of reasons. Divorce is such an everyday occurrence these days, everyone seems to be on their second or third wedding and single parents are slowly becoming the norm. This would lead you to believe that when faced with divorce in your own family, it would all be very casual and light hearted. Divorces are so common that they seem like something you pick up with the Sunday newspapers and eggs. MTV constantly shows Quickest Hollywood Marriages programmes where minor celebrities point and laugh about how short lived couples love affairs were. They chuckle at how these two rich people promised to love each other forever and then, a few hours later, decided to call it a day.

I wish it were like that in reality. But it’s not.

“I have no idea how I can help, but I am going to have to try because I want to be a daughter from multiple happy broken homes”

It’s horrible. It hurts and makes your world turn upside down and makes you wonder how long it will take for anything to feel normal again. And makes you wonder why you are wondering that because you know that it is going to take ages, possibly years, for anything to feel even slightly ordinary again. And even then it won’t be the same as it was before, and never will be.

The really odd thing for me is that I have to face this aged 23. You’re not supposed to have to deal with divorced parents after the age of 14; I thought that was the rule. It puts me in a really uncomfortable position, which is the part of all this I am struggling the most with: the fact that it is my responsibility to look after my Dad, make sure he is okay and listen to all his feeling about all the horribleness.

I read in the Sunday Times last week that people are more likely to care about their children more than their parents, that they would die for their own kids but not for their parents, because that’s not what their parents would want. So when faced with the job of minding your parent it feels wrong because we are not programmed to naturally take on this reversed role. It may sound insensitive but I find it so hard to watch my Dad struggle through these emotions because I want him to be the strong parental figure he always was for me growing up. You rarely see your parents getting upset, and if you do it’s scary. It means there is something really wrong, something they can’t fix, which completely rules out the possibility that you can fix it. It leaves me with a sense of despair and helplessness spinning around my stomach like bad Chinese food.

Holi, the Hindu festival of colours lion miles and more from the tranquillity and beauty that had surrounded me in Dharamsala. I was travelling with three people I had met in Dharamsala, fellow volunteers who I would now be travelling with for the rest of my trip. I usually try to avoid the generalisation that a city or particular travel destination can be inherently ‘bad’, and normally subscribe to the idea that you just need to know the right people and the best places. The time I spent in Delhi pushed that particular theory to its limit however, as we were hassled and conned at every turn while trying to navigate the bustle and ugliness of this mega-city.

The highlight of my short visit and our purpose for being there however was Holi, the traditional Hindu festival of colours, which is celebrated all over India. The anticipated celebrations didn’t disappoint as we got into the

I also found it so odd giving my Dad relationship advice. I am his only child, so I’m the main person around who can say things like “It’ll just take time” and “Something positive will come out of this, you just have to wait” and the classic “There’s plenty more fish in the sea” which sounds to me so inappropriate when I think of my Step-Mum. I was so muddled I even started comparing the situation to past break-ups in my life.

How ridiculous is that; trying to contrast his 15 year marriage with a two month fling I had last year? But I suppose in these situations all you can do is head straight into the ridiculousness headfirst, otherwise you just get depressed.

I am now from two broken homes, my parents never married but split up shortly after I was born. They both remarried when I was six so I grew up with two houses and knowing a life with four families as normality from then on. When I was younger my Christmases were great. Now, since I will definitely still be in contact with my Step-Mum, I’ll suddenly have three of everything, three segments of family. Now that sounds pretty ridiculous. How many times can a family split apart before it’s all just a big mess? I can never get married, my wedding would be too huge, it would cost a fortune.

The best thing is that my Dad has assured me there is no bad blood between him and my Step-Mum, that they aren’t arguing nor do they hate each other, which is something to be happy

thick of it on the city’s streets and arrived home weary and multi-coloured.

The only major downside to the festival was the treatment of my female friends, who were routinely groped by drunken locals at every second turn. India has received a lot of bad press for attacks on women in recent times, and my firsthand experience has led me to believe that there is a very serious underlying cultural basis behind the treatment of women. I could go on about this particular issue, but it will have to be saved for another day.

We left Delhi the day after Holi and set our sights on Nepal. I will be spending my final two weeks in the country that’s home to Mount Everest and safaris, and taking in the sights in a country that has fascinated me since I was a child. The entire trip has been an unforgettable one so far, and I’m sure the rest won’t disappoint.

about. I would hate to be faced with a Rachel from Friends situation where she runs back and forth between her two birthday parties not knowing where her loyalty lies. And maybe that’s the best thing about being faced with a divorce at my age, if I can find any positivity in this at all. It’s that I can be spoken to like an adult and told exactly what is going on. I can make the informed decision that I want to see my Step-Mum as much as possible, she was there for me my whole life and brought me up as much as any of my many other parents.

But I do kind of crave the naivety of being a child, being faced with faked smiles and hidden suitcases, although I know deep down that would be much harder to deal with.

I think this reversal of roles between parent and child slowly starts to happen once you go to college. You start to have an independent life away from the permission slips of your parent, their role in your life changes from guardian to friend.

They start to lean on you nearly the same amount as you lean on them. It’s unnerving and daunting and hard but I suppose that you have to remember everything they have done for you in your life, and how you are their main priority, and do your best to help them in any way you can.

I have no idea how I can help, but I am going to have to try because I want to be a daughter from multiple happy broken homes. And hopefully I will be, in time.

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OPINION

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Kill.i.an: Reading sucks

The Valentimes: Who runs the world?

Aware that his headline may attract negative reactions from inhabitants of Reading, Killian Woods would like to stress this latest column is about the verb and not the noun

I

t has taken me a long time to actually figure it out, but I’ve finally come to terms with it. I hate reading. I hate the time it consumes. I hate that I forget what I read seconds after reading it and have to go back over the same paragraph seven times. I hate how hard I find it to simply hold a book.

There’s nowhere to comfortably put my thumb or the rest of my fingers and I end up losing my train of thought because I’m focusing so hard on trying to hold the book in a comfortable way.

That brings me back to reading over the same paragraph seven times because I can’t remember what was said.

Principally I find it boring and even though there are quite a lot of books that I’ve really enjoyed, I’ve never really liked the process of doing it. So far, as I approach my 23rd birthday, I’ve read less than ten books, one being a Michael Moore conspiracy book that was more like a 100-page pamphlet (it counts).

I’m not all that thrilled that I find it boring and for the most part I forget whatever I end up reading, but I feel like I’ve kind of hit a download limit of sorts and my operating system is too crap to sustain an upgrade.

I’ve never been able to understand my aversion to reading. As a child it coincided with a stage typical rebellious childhood antipathy because my Mum would try to impose upon me a novel or sneak a cheeky book into my Christmas stocking every year. But now, as a guy in his early twenties who will be forced to become a real person in a few weeks, I feel bad. Like a failure for not enjoying reading.

I feel bad that I don’t like to read. I should like it, I just can’t seem to bring myself to actually read a book and I’d barely keep up with the news if I didn’t have easy access to it in 140 character allotments via Twitter. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried to read. Every weekend I buy the Sunday papers and don’t read them and I’ve even started forcibly watching Prime Time so when I do need to read about some boring Cypriot bailout, I’ll be somewhat preinformed and able to trudge through the reading.

My reading habits get dangerous when I start to add to the situation a very unsustainable addiction I have. I love buying books. Absolutely love it. I can’t help myself walking into Hodges Figgis and picking out four books (for the most part not on sale), buying them and then adding them to my mountain

of reading material. I even filled a customer loyalty card recently meaning I got a free book, which I will most likely never read.

This addiction of mine is mainstream focused. Although I do like to potter around small second hand bookshops and browse through their endless supply of dusty books covered in dog ears, I’m usually less tempted to splurge my hard saved savings when something is second hand. It kind of goes against my strict Ranelagh lifestyle.

As a result, I’ve got a mountain of books that I have accumulated which I just can’t bring myself to donate to charity, mainly because I don’t believe in charity. That also fits in nicely with my strict Ranelagh lifestyle.

With all my of reading material mounting up, it has gotten to a stage where I may need the incentive of a debilitating life threatening illness that gives me four months to live to force me to read these books some day.

But because I find reading so daunting, I’ve decided to set myself small challenges to get into the swing of it.

Although my main aim is small, in the context of my reading habits, it does represent a mini mountain to climb. First up on my bucket reading list is to finish The Hobbit. Ambitiously, I’d love to at least have it finished before the release of the next movie, whenever that is.

I started reading The Hobbit in July 2002 when I was 12-years-old, and have read chapters/pages here and there over the last 11 years. I happened to come across the raggedy old edition of the book on a shelf in what could be considered Brisbane’s answer to Black Books, while travelling up the Australian Gold Coast.

At first, I loved the book. I had no idea what was really going on and there was a lot of, “Mum, what’s that word mean?” and “Mum, are elves just tall gay dwarves?” Typically though, my mind wandered off the actual plot so often that I had to re-read chapters because although my eyes were scanning over the words and nothing was going in.

Eventually, like most novels I pick up, I gave up. I got lost in the plot and couldn’t have been bothered making an effort to understand why Bilbo was able to disappear and evade capture by the tall gay dwarves.

Anyway, luckily for me, I don’t need to know what happens in books any more. That’s what movies are for.

With Beyonce’s feminist credentials being called into question once again after the premiere of her documentary, Aoife Valentine asks what is good enough

A “Though some argue that portraying sexiness is empowering in itself, most seem to believe that your screams of “I’m more than a sex object!” are undermined unless you’re fully clothed”

“I’m usually less tempted to splurge my hard saved savings when something is second hand. It kind of goes against my Ranelagh lifestyle”

ll thing’s considered, it’s hard to think of Beyonce as anything other than a good role model for young women. Sure, particularly earlier this year, she drew some criticism for posing in her underwear on the cover of GQ magazine, as well as performing at the Superbowl in little more than a patch of leather held together with some lace, but she’s never been known for dressing conservatively and there’s a lot more going on in her world to land her the ‘role model’ label than what she chooses to perform in.

Beyonce has built her own empire.

For the last number of years, she has been her own manager, looking after all aspects of her career and her brand.

When she fired her father, who had until 2010 been her manager, she said that she felt it was time she compete with her male artist counterparts and become a mogul, and that she has. She runs her own business; mostly stays out of trouble (lip-syncing scandal aside); is happily married with a daughter; and with numerous female empowerment anthems in her repertoire, even Barack Obama has declared her the perfect role model for his daughters. If that’s not a shining endorsement, I don’t know what is.

Beyonce is a powerful woman, and there’s no doubting she’s well aware of that. In that same issue of GQ, she says: “I’m more powerful than my mind can even digest,” and her most recent release, ‘Bow Down, Bitches’ demands people well, bow down before her, clearly making the point that she really is the Queen B. Her message is empowering, and while she’s never quite accepted the feminist label, she’s being increasingly vocal in her concerns over the situation women find themselves in today.

The interview in GQ touched on her feelings on the gender pay gap, something which she elaborated on in her documentary that premiered on European televisions last week. She said: “You know, equality is a myth, and for some reason, everyone accepts the fact that women don’t make as much money as men do. I don’t understand that.

Why do we have to take a backseat? … I truly believe that women should be financially independent from their men.

And let’s face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define value. They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s feminine. It’s ridiculous.”

This was the narration to a scene where a scantily-clad Beyonce was dancing around, and in the case of GQ, the accompaniment to a spread of five or six photos of her in her underwear.

People were quick to criticise and point out the irony in this, and when that’s the case, it’s no wonder she steers clear of the feminist label. It’s been the same for her entire career.

Her back-catalogue may be chock full of girl power anthems, but nobody misses a beat before pulling her up on what’s she’s wearing in the video as she sings about girls running the world.

Though some argue that portraying sexiness is empowering in itself, most seem to believe that your screams of “I’m more than a sex object!” are undermined unless you’re fully clothed.

And when Beyonce’s brand of sexy aligns so easily with the very same definition that she spoke about men giving it, it does become hard to tell whether she’s empowered by express-

ing her own sexuality, or by embodying what the patriarchy have, time and time again, told us is sexy. When you look at how aware Beyonce is of the power men hold however, it’s difficult to believe that she falls into the latter category.

Lena Dunham has become renowned for taking off her clothes or wearing very little and celebrating her body, and the media lap it up.

However, because Beyonce is more conventionally sexy, it would appear she’s killing feminism while Dunham champions it. Just maybe, the world should open it’s mind to the idea that you can be a feminist and still want to be attractive to men. And certainly for Beyonce, that’s almost a necessity.

Within the music industry, half of the business is centred around creating fantasies designed to entertain and sell and that doesn’t just apply to the women either. All you have to do is take one look at the crazed One Directioners and Beliebers to see that.

Beyonce has built a multi-billion dollar empire and commands a huge amount of respect, and it almost seems as if, for that reason, anything she does which might in theory endorse a feminist mantra or feature female empowerment in some form can be put to trial to decide if it’s ruining feminism the minute it’s put out into the world.

Here’s the thing though: Beyonce has never declared herself a feminist, and by all accounts, seems uncomfortable with that particular label. Why then, do we feel we can tell her that her feminism, the same feminism she has yet to lay claim to, isn’t good enough?

Far too many feminists are pushing the idea that there are a million wrong ways to be a feminist, and no way but their way to do it right, and that needs to stop.

Beyonce has never asked, or presumed to be, a feminist role model.

She has certainly championed the independent woman, and surely that is what we should be looking at. That is the brand of feminism she has defined for herself, and that is what she understands and practices. That is where she is absolutely killing it; I don’t think anyone questions Beyonce’s independence, or even tells her what to do.

Even as she takes her husband’s name for her latest tour (It’s called the Mrs Carter Show, after Jay Z’s given name), no one believes that was anyone’s decision but Beyonce’s, especially given that Jay Z took her name as well.

Feminism isn’t gaining anything by tearing Beyonce down. She represents an accessible feminism that most women can get on board with, and that’s easily seen by women’s responses to her female empowerment anthems. Whether it’s the fact that ‘Run the World (Girls)’ and ‘Independent Woman Part I’ are among her most famous songs, or the fact that every man in a club disappears the minute ‘Single Ladies’ comes on, as women scarper back to their friends so they can dance around handbags singing about how they don’t need no man, or whatever.

Beyonce, whether hardcore feminists like it or not, is an inspiration to many, many women, and as long as her message continues to be that women deserve to be seen as equals, does it really matter what she’s wearing? When I see a front cover picture of Beyonce in her underwear, my focus isn’t on whether or not you can see a bit of her boob. Granted I’m not a man, nor am I attracted to women, but I see Beyonce as a strong and formidable woman who at the very least pretty much runs the music world. Beyonce is powerful, and she continuously seeks to empower other women, and remind them of their worth, and that’s something we should be able to get behind. Perhaps those who can’t, to borrow Beyonce’s own words, simply aren’t ready for all that jelly.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

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Observer Editorial editor @ universityobserver.ie

T

his has been a rather eyeopening week for me in many respects. Last week I attended for the USI Congress for the first time. It was never something I expected to go to, first because I am not involved with student politics, and second because I am so not involved in student politics that I hadn’t really heard of it. For those lucky enough not to be initiated, Congress is where almost all of USI’s policy is decided. Each member Union can send a certain number of delegates to vote on their behalf. I was chosen to go not as a delegate, but as an observer, meaning I was allowed to watch and speak, but not vote. I learned a lot last week, and not just about what 250 students will get up to if you get them extremely drunk and give them free hotel rooms. That story is reserved for therapy.

What was interesting is that I was able to see the views of people who may well be in the Irish government in 1020 years time, and it did not fill me with hope. While on the whole the delegates there were very progressive, LGBT and mental health motions for instance were passed unanimously, there were other areas which showed me that student politicians are extremely shel-

Clarifications & Corrections It is the policy of the University Observer to rectify any errors as soon as they arise.

Queries and clarifications can be addressed to info@universityobserver.ie.

In our February 19th issue, in a news article titled “UCD Ball 2013 to be held on campus following Gardaí negotiations”, UCDSU Ents officer Eoin Heffernan is quoted saying that the “head

tered and naïve. I’m referring to the controversial motions on female participation in politics.

Two fairly bland and benign motions about encouraging women to be involved in political life came up in Congress, and the response to them shocked me. Not only were students against them, but they declared the very idea that women need encouragement to be insulting. Several women got up to speak saying that they had been elected without encouragement, that if they could do it anyone could, and that the best person was always picked for the job. One female delegate was particularly outraged, declaring to those proposing the motion that “You might have your statistics but...”. Congress eventually passed an emergency motion on the issue, but it was the blatant ignorance and sexism of the speakers during those motions which stood out.

There were several things stated by the opposition that need addressing.

First, the statistics. While the famous phrase “Lies, damn lies and statistics” may dismiss them, in this case the statistics are inarguable. Irish women are painfully under-represented in local, national and even student politics. Women make up only 15.1% of the

of Diffusion Events” was “working with the Garda Commissioner” and is “pretty close to them”.

It was felt these comments falsely imply Diffusion Events have a corrupt relationship with An Garda Síochana.

Heffernan wishes to clarify that he never intended to give this impression, but rather meant that as with many experienced events management companies, Diffusion Events have a good working relationship with An Garda Síochana, and have a strong knowledge of what is involved in running events.

He said: “I deeply regret the comments I made in the interview. I never meant to hurt and offend the people who have helped me the most since taking office in July. I’ve personally apologised to all the individuals involved and I hope we can move on from it.”

Talleyrand Servus, Hard to believe it is nearly a month since the cretins came out for breeding season in an attempt to foster a new line of sabrats for the upcoming academic year.

Congratulations are in order for the Welfare and Equality Officer elect, Cian “I’m proper poor, I have a

grant” Dowling. Talleyrand has his reservations that a candidate could be elected based solely on the fact he wore a variety of hats at slaphappy angles.

Nevertheless, he exemplifies a perfect candidate for a bankrupt Union. So bereft of creativity and enterprise is Cian “Action Man” Dowling that he doesn’t have the same capacity as his predecessors to think of ideas that can

Dáil, and 16% in local councils, despite making up 52% of the population. This level of female representation puts us 23rd out of 27 countries in in the EU, and 89th worldwide. We have just 0.1% higher female representation than the next country, Zimbabwe, and 0.5% less than the country ahead of us, North Korea. Other countries which throw Ireland’s record into shame include Rwanda (56.3%), South Africa (42.3%), Nicaragua (40.2%), Sudan (26.5), Iraq (25.2) and Afghanistan (27.7%). Student politics is in many cases worse.

While USI might boast a significant female presence this year, they have not elected a female president since 1994.

UCDSU currently has a female president, but the overall record is dismal, with only three female officers elected in the last 10 years, around 6%.

I think it is inarguable that women do not run, and are not elected, in anything near an equal number. Accepting this, I want to address the second point argued by those in opposition to the motion: whether the best and most capable people run and are chosen for the job. This to me, is where the main sexism creeps in, though I’m sure those positing this view would deny it to their grave. If you acknowledge that only just over 15% of representatives are women,

and also that only those best suited and capable are elected, what you are saying is that women are not equally as capable as men in politics. That only 15% of women are as capable as 85% of men.

I really have no response to this, other than I can’t believe this belief would exist, not only in 2013, but amongst the younger generation in 2013.

So what can be done? It’s not the electorate who is to blame as such in this case. If you were to place two equally qualified candidates up for a vote, one male, one female, I think that the woman would have, perhaps not an equal chance, but a much better than 15% chance at least. I think the main problem is that women do not put themselves forward for election in the same numbers men do. In the delightfully titled study released last month on gender gaps in politics, “Girls Just Wanna Not Run”, authors Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox outline five factors that hinder young women’s political ambitions including that men are more likely than to be socialised by their parents to think about politics as a career path, women tend to be exposed to less political information and discussion, men are more likely to have played organised sports and care about winning, women are less likely than

young men to receive encouragement to run for office from anyone at all, and women are less likely to think they will be qualified to run for office. Critically all these reasons are to do with encouragement, society’s attitudes to women in politics and socialisation of women, not their abilities.

Women have very few role models in politics, and it’s not improving. Women are never encouraged growing up to consider a political career, and if they do run, find themselves scrutinised by the public and media to a far higher degree than their male peers. God forbid a female politician be overweight or unattractive. On the other side, a too attractive woman will be instantly sexualised and dismissed by the media, with all reports focusing on appearance rather than policies. However, it seems encouragement is the deciding factor.

Studies show that men and women respond equally to encouragement, and that if parents, schools, peers and media gave equal encouragement to both sexes, the gender gap would close. But if the attitudes and determination to slam the glass ceiling back in place displayed in Congress hold true for young people across the country, we are still decades away from gender equality in Irish politics.

potentially drive this organisation into further financial meltdown.

With Cian “All ideas, no idea” Dowling coupled with Mícheál “PR Disaster” Gallagher and Adam “Propaganda Slut” Carroll, all students can rest assured that absolutely nothing that could possibly warrant dipping into the coffers will take place.

Talleyrand can be too hard on the Students’ Poonian at times. In fairness, only seven days ago their timetables were packed with political agendas followed by tumultuous dress like sluts parties. Indeed, USI Congress was in full flow and our esteemed delegates who were fortunate enough to represent the Union can anticipate a nervous few weeks as they wait with bated breath to see if that sticky feeling of shame associated with attending the student equivalent of a leper colony washes off.

However, it disappointed Talleyrand to hear that our envoy suffered from bullying tactics as other delegates refused to treat them seriously. One would assume they are accustomed at this stage to no one paying heed to their frivolous requests for a motion on what type of pencil USI should use. Nonetheless, Talleyrand would like to commend El Bresidente for leading her troops out of Congress in protest, however, throwing all your USCry complimentary toys (a pen, mints and a condom) out of the pram is unlikely to register or win back their respect.

On that note, since UCD students voted to leave USShy, it is questionable why the StfU are sending anyone to these gatherings that only act as a method of transporting STIs from one region to another? It’s reassuring to know that no one has cared to read the relevant

constitutions to check once and for all when we, as the students of Smellfield, are allowed to sever that tie to USDie once and for all, allowing them to drift away into endless obscurity.

Last, and as usual least, the Guineypig deserves some respect for swanning his way into another position devoid of any form of authority and, as it appears, responsibility as USWhy’s Vice President of Campaigns and

Whatever. Jumping from stepping-stone to stepping-stone, Paddy the Caddy may find that this is the end of the line for his narcissistic career minded crusade. Being the VP Something of USI will require him to physically open and reply to emails, which our dear Pet Paddy just doesn’t have in him.

Editor Emer Sugrue

the

University Observer Volume XIX Issue XI Telephone: (01) 716 3835/3837 Email: info@universityobserver.ie www.universityobserver.ie

The University Observer is printed at Webprint Concepts Limited Mahon Retail Park Cork Ireland

Deputy Editor Aoife Valentine Art, Design and Technology Director Conor Kevin O’Nolan Chief Designer Gary Kealy Assistant Designer Aoife Valentine News Editors Yvanne Kennedy Deputy News Editor Sean O’Grady Comment Editor Evan O’Quigley

Features Editor Sean Finnan Deputy Features Editor Nicole Casey Science & Health Editor Emily Longworth Irish Editor Charlotte Ní Eatún Sports Editor Kevin Beirne Chief Writers Lucy Montague Moffatt Michael O’Sullivan Jack Walsh Killian Woods

Staff Writers Fergus Carroll Matthew Morrow Donal Woods Laura Woulfe Contributors Dwayne Byrne Sean Craddock Conor Keegan Patrick Kelleher Anne-Marie Flynn Claudine Murphy Robert Ranson Alex Rathke Talleyrand Chief Photographer Caoimhe McDonnell

Tallyho, Talleyrand

Special Thanks Eilis O’Brien Dominic Martella Giselle Jiang Deirdre Carr Dominic, Grace, Charlie, Jason, Aifric and all the Student Centre Staff Tony, Laura and all the Webprint staff Very Special Thanks Balazs Pete, Sam Dunne and all the robots at NetSoc, Teresa Alonso Cortes, Dave Connolly, Killian Woods.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Applications for Volume XX of The University Observer

Editor

Deputy Editor

Applications are invited for the position of Editor of the University Observer for the academic year 2013/2014.

Applications are invited for the position of Deputy Editor of the University Observer for the academic year 2012/2013.

The Position: The Editor of the University Observer is responsible for all aspects of the newspaper. The Editor is responsible for the management of the newspaper, the publication and distribution of the newspaper, the content of the newspaper and is responsible for the co-ordination of the newspaper’s writers. The Editor is responsible for all internal appointments (with the exception of the Deputy Editor and the Designer) within the newspaper as well as any disciplinary matters that may arise (with the exception of the Deputy Editor and the Designer).

The position of Editor of the University Observer is an extremely demanding one and applicants for the position should be aware that the role involves working unsocial hours in a highly pressurised environment.

The position includes working alternate weekends.

The Editor is responsible for all deadlines being met by the newspaper.

The University Observer is editorially independent from the Students’ Union, as enshrined in the Union constitution. The Editor has complete authority over the content of the newspaper, proviso to the standard regulations governing newspaper content (e.g. libel etc).

The Editor is appointed for the full academic year, 2013/2014.

The Position: The Deputy Editor of the University Observer, upon direction from the Editor, is responsible for all aspects of the newspaper. The Deputy Editor, subject in all matters concerning the newspaper to the direction of the Editor, shall be responsible, with the Editor, for the management of the newspaper, the publication and distribution of the newspaper, the content of the newspaper and is responsible for the co-ordination of the newspaper’s writers.

The position of Deputy Editor of the University Observer is an extremely demanding one and applicants for the position should be aware that the role involves working unsocial hours in a highly pressurised environment.

The position includes working alternate weekends.

The Deputy Editor is responsible for all deadlines being met by the newspaper.

The University Observer is editorially independent from the Students’ Union, as enshrined in the Union constitution. The Deputy Editor has authority over the content of the newspaper, subject to the standard regulations governing newspaper content (e.g. libel etc).

The Deputy Editor is appointed for the full academic year, 2013/2014.

The Candidate: The candidate should exhibit a serious commitment to journalism.

Ideally, the candidate should have experience working for a newspaper or media organisation.

It is preferable but not essential that the candidate is/was a registered student of University College Dublin.

The position is a full time one and the candidate should be aware of the pressurised environment under which newspaper editors operate. The candidate must be in a position to prove to the interview panel his/her ability to meet fixed, non negotiable printing deadlines whilst working at speed and under pressure.

The candidate should exhibit a clear sense of duty towards the newspaper, combined with sharp commercial acumen.

A strong knowledge of social media is essential in order to manage the demands of the University Observer website and online resources.

The Candidate: The candidate should exhibit a serious commitment to journalism.

Ideally, the candidate should have experience working for a newspaper or media organisation.

It is preferable but not essential that the candidate is/was a registered student of University College Dublin.

The position is a full time one and the candidate should be aware of the pressurised environment under which newspaper editors operate. The candidate must be in a position to prove to the interview panel his/her ability to meet fixed, non negotiable printing deadlines whilst working at speed and under pressure.

The candidate should exhibit a clear sense of duty towards the newspaper, combined with sharp commercial acumen.

A strong knowledge of social media is essential in order to manage the demands of the University Observer website and other online resources.

Remuneration: Wages currently stand at €500 per issue minus taxes (twelve editions of the paper are normally published). As well as this, expenses incurred during production of the newspaper may be reclaimed. In addition, the successful candidate is currently entitled to a commission rate on all net revenue secured from advertisements placed within the newspaper. More details are available on this matter.

Remuneration: Wages currently stand at €450 per issue minus taxes (twelve editions of the paper are normally published). As well as this, expenses incurred during production of the newspaper may be reclaimed. In addition, the successful candidate is currently entitled to a commission rate on all net revenue secured from advertisements placed within the newspaper. More details are available on this matter.

Application Procedure: Applicants for the above position must submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae and a detailed proposal outlining how the candidate intends to operate and manage the University Observer. The proposal must include a comprehensive outline of strategic changes that can be made to improve the newspaper. Specific areas where the newspaper can be improved should be dealt with in some detail. The applicant should also outline his/her proposals for the day-to-day organisation and management of the newspaper.

Application Procedure: Applicants for the above position must submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae and a detailed proposal, outlining how the candidate intends to operate and manage the University Observer. The proposal must include a comprehensive outline of strategic changes that can be made to improve the newspaper. Specifics areas where the newspaper can be improved should be dealt with in some detail.

The applicant should also outline his/her proposals for the day-today organisation and management of the newspaper.

Applications should be sent to the following address: Emer Sugrue, The University Observer, Student Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.

Applications should be sent to the following address: Emer Sugrue, The University Observer Student Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.

Applicants with further queries should contact Emer Sugrue, at 01 716 3837, weekdays during business hours.

Applicants with further queries should contact Emer Sugrue at 01 716 3837, weekdays during business hours.

Remuneration: Wages currently stand at €450 per issue (twelve editions of the paper are normally published).

Shortlisted candidates will be called for an interview, where they will be expected to answer any questions raised in relation to their proposal.

Members of the interview panel will include the current Editor, two previous Editors of the newspaper, a financial representative of the Students’ Union and the current Union President.

Short-listed candidates will be called for an interview, where they will be expected to answer any question raised in relation to the proposal.

Application Procedure Applications should be sent to the following address:

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Joint applications will not be accepted.

• Canvassing members of the interview panel will lead to an automatic disqualification.

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Note: • Applicants are only permitted to apply for this position individually.

Joint applications will not be accepted.

• Canvassing members of the interview panel will lead to an automatic disqualification.

• No formal training is offered to successful candidates.

Closing date for applications is 5pm, 26th April 2013.

Closing date for applications is 5pm, 26th April,

Art & Design Director Applications are invited for the position of Art and Design Director of the University Observer for the academic year 2013/2014.

The Position: You will be responsible for the design and layout of the newspaper, working in conjunction with the editors and contributors. The position will require work at alternate weekends, whilst working hours during the week are flexible. Although this work is highly demanding it is also highly rewarding. The successful candidate would be expected to constantly strive to improve the overall design of the newspaper.

The Art & Design Director is not responsible for any content, rather on its presentation. The Art & Design Director is to report to the Editor and Deputy Editor.

The Candidate: The successful applicant will have good computer skills and be proficient in Adobe InDesign as well as Adobe Photoshop. A good working knowledge of OSX is essential. Experience of Adobe InCopy is desirable. A personal interest in graphic design and typography would also be preferable. As a person you should possess ability to meet tight deadlines and manage a large workload. You must also have the ability to meet technical guidelines from printers and have a basic knowledge of the four colour printing process.

Emer Sugrue, The University Observer Student Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 Note: Applicants will be required to present a portfolio of work upon request.

Closing date for applications is 5pm, 26th April 2013.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

SPORT

17

Getting down to business Matthew Morrow previews this weekend’s Heineken Cup quarter-finals

T

he return of the Heineken Cup provides a welcome distraction for Irish rugby, following a disastrous Six Nations campaign that will, in all likelihood, cost Declan Kidney his job. Munster and Ulster carry Irish hopes going into the quarterfinals, with the promise of a ‘home’ final in the Aviva Stadium providing extra motivation for these two teams.

This all means that the pressure is on for those players hoping to book themselves a flight to Australia as part of the impending Lions tour.

Traditionally, home advantage is a significant one in the quarter-final stage, and that is reflected in the fact

lesser sides Edinburgh and Treviso.

With Craig Gilory, Luke Marshall and Paddy Jackson all benefiting from time in the green jersey, as well as the big game temperament of Ruan Pienaar and the leadership of Johann Muller and Rory Best, Ulster will be confident of beating a Saracens team, although not as confident as they would have been before the Six Nations.

The Saracens game plan is based on set-piece organisation and Owen Farrell pulling the strings at outhalf. They tend to play quite a limited game, with an emphasis on kicking and territory, despite the presence of Alex Goode and Chris Ashton in their back three. The key for Ulster will be to do what they

“Traditionally, home advantage is a significant one in the quarter-final stage, and that is reflected in the fact that all four home teams are the bookmakers’ favourites for their respective ties” that all four home teams are the bookmakers’ favourites for their respective ties. However, given Ulster’s win at Thomond Park and Clermont’s demolition of Saracens in London 12 months ago, away teams will look forward to these clashes with renewed hope and confidence.

Ulster’s clash with Saracens has been switched to Twickenham, scene of the northern men’s dismantling at the hands of Leinster in last year’s final.

Ulster have been playing some terrific rugby this season, although their progress has been hampered by call-ups to the Ireland squad as well as a huge injury list. There has been a notable drop off in their performances in recent weeks, especially against supposed

did at Thomond Park last year, and get out to an early lead, forcing Saracens to chase the game, which they will not be as comfortable doing as other teams.

If Ulster can get ahead early, then they should back themselves to win the game. On a side-note, Jackson’s mediocre kicking against Edinburgh at the end of March will, in all probably, see more-accomplished Pienaar take over the place-kicking duties once more.

The next Anglo-Irish tie pits Harlequins, coached by the excellent Conor O’Shea, against a Munster side who scraped into the quarter-finals ahead of their provincial counterparts Leinster.

O’Shea has extracted the maximum from his squad in London and they will be heavy favourites for this encounter.

Rob Penney still hasn’t entirely settled at Munster, although the recent return of Paul O’Connell has provided a welcome boost. Ronan O’Gara will look to prove that Kidney made the wrong call in dropping him from the Irish squad, and his matchup against Nick Evans will go a long way in deciding this encounter.

Without Simon Zebo, Munster will look to Keith Earls and Casey Laulala to provide a spark in the backline. A few years ago, this game would have set-up for Munster to win behind a dominant forward performance, led by O’Connell, and O’Gara kicking everything in sight. Now, with Father Time rapidly catching up on these two great players, it looks a bridge too far for this Munster team.

The all French quarter-final of Clermont and Montpellier looks to be heavily favoured towards the home team, who have a formidable record at their home ground. Despite it being a Lions year, and the fact that the Irish provinces are playing for a ‘home’ final, Clermont are probably the most motivated side left in the competition following their heartbreaking defeat to Leinster in the semi-final stage last year.

In particular, Wesley Fofana will be keen to makes amends for losing the ball over the try-line in the dying moments of that game. With further star quality provided by Morgan Parra, Sitiveni Sivivatu and Aurelien Rougerie, it is hard to not look past Clermont, for both this game and the whole tournament. Montpellier will be no pushovers though, with Francois Trinh-Duc and Johnny Beattie playing at a high standard, they should at least ensure that Clermont have to go and win the game on their own merits.

The fourth quarter-final pits Leicester against the financial giants of world rugby; Toulon. Toulon have assembled a squad to try and do the double of a Top 14 Championship and a Heineken Cup victory, and they hope to do it as soon as possible. Their squad is filled with world class players in every position, and they have recently added former Leinster favourite Rocky Elsom to their forwards, where he will play

“Ulster’s clash with Saracens has been switched to Twickenham, scene of the northern men’s dismantling at the hands of Leinster in last year’s final”

alongside Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, Carl Hayman and Bakkies Botha.

Behind the scrum, Jonny Wilkinson is playing to an exceptionally high standard again this year, which has allowed former Wallaby Matt Giteau to excel as the playmaker, while Freddie Michalak should find comfort and form in his transfer back to scrum-half. Leicester will need a huge performance, with Tom Croft and Martin Castrogiavanni expected to lead the way up front. The matchup between Manu Tualigi and Mathieu Bastareaud will not be for the faint hearted.

Ultimately, both Toulon and Clermont are looking very, very strong for this year’s competition and with the draw pitting them in separate semifinals, should they both win their last eight encounters, we could be on for an all French final in the Aviva Statdium come May.

All roads lead to Wembley With the quarter-finals of the Champions League starting tonight, Alex Rathke takes a look at the chances of the remaining eight teams

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his year’s Champions League quarter-finals have thrown up some interesting ties, but Bayern Munich versus Juventus is the pick of the lot. Italian Champions Juventus, who beat Celtic 5-0 on aggregate, will take on current German league leader Munich on April 2nd and 10th.

The Germans are loaded with superstars from some of Europe’s top countries, such as Bastian Schweinsteiger, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, but still had a difficult time managing Arsenal during their second leg tie a few weeks back, only making it through to the next round on away goals. As such, their European pedigree has been called into question, but the fact remains that their defensive record and goal scoring ability are still the best in the German League this season.

Juventus will be hoping that Andrea Pirlo will be on top form to provide Alessandro Matri with the passes to penetrate the Munich defence, but the Germans will provide a much more testing challenge than Celtic did and manager Antonio Conte will know that.

Juventus will hope to extinguish Munich’s hopes of giving Jupp Heynckes’ the perfect send-off, before he is replaced by previous Barcelona Manager Pep Guardiola.

On the same days as the Juventus/ Munich ties, Barcelona will face-off against big-spending Paris Saint-Germain. Barcelona will once again be favourites now that their star player, Lionel Messi, has found his form again.

Once the first leg of Barcelona’s game with AC Milan in the round of 16 was over, many ruled out any chances that they would progress to the quarter-finals of the competition.

However, a world class performance from the Catalans led one of the most breath-taking comebacks in the history

of the competition, as they sliced their way through Milan’s defence to book their place in the last eight.

PSG will look to get star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic back on the score sheet as he will once again meet one of his previous employers, who acquired his services following a trade with Inter Milan in exchange for Samuel Eto’o and a whopping €46 million back in 2009. PSG have come a long way in a very short space of time, thanks largely the resources they have been given.

They have done what many expected Manchester City to do last year and this year. Former Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti, now manager of PSG, knows what it takes to win Europe’s most prestigious prize, as he’s already lifted the trophy twice with AC Milan in 2003 and again in 2007.

Meanwhile, German champions Borussia Dortmund are continuing their impressive run of form in Europe this season after building on last years’ fourth place finish at the bottom of Group F. Manager Juergen Klopp has very carefully improved Dortmund’s playing ability with fresh youngsters from the club’s academy.

Polish duo Robert Lewandowski and Jakub Blaszczykowski have been very influential in midfield, while strikers Mario Goetze and Marco Reus work a very dangerous striking partnership upfront. The loss of Japanese playmaker Shinji Kagawa to Manchester United seems not to have affected the German team that much this year.

They face surprise quarter-finalists Malaga, who have come the longest way of all eight teams here, having gone through the previous qualifying rounds even before the group stage draws took place. Malaga started their Champions League season off with a play-off game against Greek team Panathinaikos and then finished off winners in Group C,

ahead of the mighty AC Milan.

Malaga then went on to beat FC Porto 2-1 on aggregate. They will hope to upset Dortmund and secure a semifinal place, although they have already gotten further than have ever gotten in the history of the tournament. Dortmund, on the other hand, are hoping to relive their Champions League winning season of 1996-1997.

In the final tie of the round, Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho will hope to continue his march to become the first manager to win the UEFA Champions League with three different teams. Mourinho currently shares the record of two wins with two other managers; Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld.

In the previous round, Madrid overcame Manchester United thanks in part to controversial refereeing decision, which gave Madrid the upper hand, when Manchester United player Nani was sent-off for raising his boot in what the referee decided was dangerous play.

“Malaga started their Champions League season off with a play-off game against Greek team Panathinaikos and then finished off winners in Group C, ahead of the mighty AC Milan”

Turkish side Galatasaray are looking strong, especially after signing Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba and Dutch playmaker Wesley Sneijder, both of whom were previously coached by Mourinho at Chelsea and Inter respectively. Turkish player Hamit Altintop plays a crucial role in midfield, in which he links with Sneijder, and scored against Schalke 04 in the previous round. Galatasaray will bring a very attacking style of Turkish football to the Bernabeu and try and influence Mourinho’s defensive tactical system.

One of the biggest talking points since the ending of the last round has been the elimination of all English

teams from the competition, which has not happened since the 1995-1996 season, when Blackburn finished last in their group. It is looking like the winner will come from Spain, who have three teams still left in the competition, while Germany is next best option, with two teams.

The draw for the semi-finals of the Champions League will take place on April 12th at UEFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. The games will be played on April 23rd and 24th, with the return legs being named for the 30th April and 1st May. The final will again be located at Wembley Stadium, London for the second time in three years.

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The University Observer | 3 April 2013

Upgrading the old system Claudine Murphy looks at the increased use of technology in football and wonders at what point it becomes too much

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IFA have recently announced that goal-line technology will be introduced for the 2014 World Cup and that a fourth system of goalline technology has been approved and granted a licence. The German-produced ‘GoalControl 4D’ uses 14 highspeed cameras placed strategically around the pitch and focused at both goals in order to determine whether or not the ball has entered the goal.

It is claimed that, by using this process, “the ball is continually and automatically captured in three dimensions as soon as it approaches the goal-line…

When the ball has completely crossed

“This technology was first tested in this season’s Club World Cup and successfully recorded all the 21 goals scored without error, which has led to the decision

by FIFA to prepare the technology by this summer’s Confederations Cup in Brazil, and in turn, the 2014 World Cup finals”

the line, the central analysis unit sends an encrypted signal to the referee’s watch in less than a second. GoalControl 4D can be used with both standard goalposts and balls.”

The first two methods of goal-line technology approved by FIFA were GoalRef and Hawk-Eye. While GoalRef uses magnetic fields, Hawk-Eye, which is used in tennis and cricket, is similar to GoalControl as it is also opticalbased. It is not yet known which system will be used for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

In the modern era, every aspect of the game of football comes under intense scrutiny, and the issue of using goal-line technology is no exception. It is an area which many in the football community are calling to be directly integrated while others advocate the continued reliance on the use of video replays or an increased number of match officials, cautious that technological developments may reduce the human element of the game.

Although FIFA has remained largely against the use of goal-line technology, it has now reconsidered this opinion, owing largely to the 2010 World Cup match between England and Germany, where Frank Lampard’s goal was not awarded by the match officials.

This technology was first tested in this season’s Club World Cup and successfully recorded all the 21 goals scored without error, which has led to the decision by FIFA to prepare the technology by this summer’s Confederations Cup in Brazil, and in turn, the 2014 World Cup finals.

The Premier League in England recently announced their plans to implement this technology by next season.

The FA and Premier League are now in talks with two of the firms over putting the technology into English topflight clubs and Wembley Stadium.

Still, some leagues, such as the German Bundesliga, are determined to wait a little longer and continue the use of old

methods.

Meanwhile, the European governing body UEFA has chosen not to yet to adopt goal-line technology, choosing to employ an extra linesman behind each goal. This has not proved always successful, however, particularly against the seemingly flawless system of goalline technology. Although the technology has yet to be embraced worldwide, it is showing positive signs due to its success rate and is likely to be the way forward in ensuring goal scores are recorded immediately and accurately.

There has been much criticism of the extra officials behind the goals, as many feel that they do not do anything and some have been accused of cowardice when it comes to making the only decisions that they were put there to make in the first place.

In late March, the Football Federation of Australia announced that it is to become the second nation to use goalline technology in a major FIFA-sanctioned tournament, when they host the 2015 Asian Cup. The Asian Football Confederation will decide which electronic method is to be used for the Asian Cup, despite FIFA committing to their preferred technology during the Confederations Cup in June and next year’s World Cup, both of which are set to take place in Brazil.

In a statement, AFC said that they have been “fully studying all options and will choose the best way for betterment of football matches in consultation with referees committee.” This is because FIFA announced that competition organisers are free to decide whether or not to use the technology, and they get to decide which company they would like to bring in should they decide to adopt the new methods.

It seems likely that Premier League clubs are likely to use some form of goal-line technology for domestic games from next season onwards, but they will be forbidden from doing so during European matches. This is due

Going full throttle With the 2013 Formula One season already underway, Seán Craddock looks at what we can expect in the season ahead

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he new Formula One season kicked off in Australia last month. It was the first opportunity for the teams to see if their hard work over the winter months had paid off, and a chance to see how their new car compares to those of their rivals.

There are very few technical rule changes this year, certainly compared to next season when there will be a radical change to the engine. As a result, many of this season’s cars are merely an evolution of the previous one, with teams hoping to fix any weaknesses found over the course of last season.

There have been quite a few driver changes up and down the grid, the most notable being Lewis Hamilton’s move to Mercedes. He already seems up to speed in his new car, achieving a podium finish in Malaysia, despite accidentally stopping at his old team McLaren’s garage for his pit stop. However, early indications show that teammate Nico Rosberg is just as fast as the Englishman and there should be a good battle between the two throughout the season.

Adrian Sutil has returned to Force India, the team that had dropped him last season after he was convicted of as-

sault. The German has already shown that he has lost none of his talent during his year away, leading the opening race in Australia and helping the team to their best ever start to a season.

The battle at the back of the field is closer than ever, with a number of drivers have making the step up from lower categories to Caterham and Marussia.

In Malaysia, Marussia’s new driver Bianchi almost qualified ahead of Williams’ rookie Valtteri Bottas in dry conditions; meaning the team could be close to getting that lucrative first point they have been yearning for.

Williams, on the other hand, ap-

“It seems likely that Premier League clubs are likely to use some form of goal-line technology for domestic games from next season onwards, but they will be forbidden from doing so during European matches” to the fact that UEFA President, Michel Platini, remains vehemently opposed to the use of goal-line technology.

In analysing the positive aspect of goal-line technology, it needs to be considered that the general secretary of the Football Association, Alex Horne, has advocated its use stating “My view that I will recommend to the FA Cup committee is that technology favours nobody; it is there for both teams.”

The current, lightning-fast developments in the area of technology in football appear to show no signs of slowing

pear to have lost ground to their rivals this season. Both cars have failed to qualify higher than 16th and Maldonado failed to finish the opening races following two similar driver errors.

The car doesn’t look to have the speed to qualify in the top ten, and the team have a lot of work to do if they want to challenge the likes of Sauber and Force India.

James Key joined Torro Rosso last season as chief designer and has designed a completely new car for this season. The car is a step in the right direction and is already quicker than the Williams at this stage of the season.

Both drivers are in their second year with the team and will badly want to out-do each other. No driver has ever stayed at the team after two full seasons, and there’s a possibility one of them will be chosen to replace Mark Webber at Red Bull in the future.

On paper, Red Bull have had the best start to the season. A front row lockout in Australia and a 1-2 finish in Malaysia means the team is leading both championships, but it’s not all carefree at the team after Sebastian Vettel ignored the team’s instructions and overtook Webber to win in Malaysia. The car has incredible qualifying pace, and as long as they can look after their tyres there will undoubtedly be more dominant displays. Despite the in-team conflict, they’re still favourites for the title.

Kimi Räikkönen’s win in Australia has shown the strength of the Lotus team’s car this season. The Finn has finished nineteen consecutive races in the points and the team have the ability to win again this season. If they can improve on qualifying performance, as well as keep their consistency, there’s a chance Räikkönen can mount a title charge and try to add to his 2007 championship.

For McLaren, on the other hand, the new car is off the pace and there are suggestions that the team might resort

“[Vettel] looks on course to becoming the youngest ever four time champion”

down, with the majority of those in the football community steadily embracing the introduction of these innovations.

It appears that Platini is the most powerful opponent to the implementation of goal-line technology.

At present, football remains miles behind such sports as rugby, cricket and tennis in its refusal to adapt to modern technology. But, although their current stance is in support of traditional methods, it appears to be only a matter of time before cutting edge technology is used worldwide.

“[Massa] hasn’t maintained a level of consistency like this since before his 2009 accident that left him out for half a year” to using last year’s car. Jenson Button won the last race of last season, but hasn’t managed to carry that momentum over to 2013. Hamilton’s absence won’t help either and they’ll need to turn things around quickly if they want to save their reputation. The team are currently seventh in the championship, with only four points from two races.

Felipe Massa also finished last season strongly, with a podium finish on home soil, and has managed to continue that form into this season. The Ferrari driver is on a run of twelve consecutive points finishes. The Brazilian hasn’t maintained a level of consistency like this since before his 2009 accident that left him out for half a year. The Ferrari car is fast again this season and has started mush better than last year’s version.

The man in the other Ferrari, Fernando Alonso, is still looking for that third title and should get another chance this year. Six seasons have passed since his last championship, but the Spaniard is determined to add to his trophy cabinet. A non-finish in Malaysia, after not pitting for a new nose, won’t help his chances and he will have to avoid making more mistakes like that this season.

We are now in the midst of a three week break, before heading to China for round three later this month. The teams know where they need to improve, and with mid-season testing being dropped this season, the break is the best opportunity to develop upgrades.

After two rounds it’s a who leads the championship. The German has never lost a championship lead in his F1 career, and with his current form he looks on course to becoming the youngest ever four time champion.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

SPORT

SPORTS DIGEST

“Maeve Kyle received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Sports Council thanks to her three Olympic appearances”

Girls who run the world Dónal Woods takes a look at the achievements of Irish women in sport

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Orienteering UCD men’s orienteering team won the intervarsities last week, in the National Park, Muckross, Killarney. The presence of deer in the lower regions of the park meant that the contest had to take place in the forested area surrounding Torc Mountain, in the south-east of the park.

UCD’s Colm Moran, a first year engineering student who took a year out between finishing secondary school and starting his degree in order to focus on orienteering, won the individual men’s competition in the highly impressive time of 70 minutes and 34 seconds.

Lawrence Quinn, first year computer science, came third overall, while Cillín Corbett, first year actuarial studies, just missed out on the podium as he finished in fourth. Overall, the future looks bright for UCD’s young orienteering team, with all three members still in their first year of studies.

Fencing UCD’s fencing club took home the colours trophy for the first time since 2007 after they beat Dublin University fencing club last week by an incredibly tight margin of 26-25 bouts. The contest took place in Belfield last Wednesday.

UCD were victorious in the men’s epee by a score of 5-4, but the score line was reversed in the men’s sabre, as DUFC took the even by 5-4. It was in the men’s foil where UCD were able to create a bit of daylight between the two sides with a 5-3 win.

In the women’s contests, DUFC were on top with wins in the epee and foil by scores of 5-3 and 5-4 respectively. It was only through a 5-3 victory in the sabre that UCD were able to establish a one point lead that gave them their first colours title in six years.

The Badger:

The Badger looks forward to a week of high quality sport

Football UCD AFC earned their first point from their opening five games of the Airtricity League season, following a 2-2 draw with Bray Wanderers at the Carlisle Grounds last Friday. Two goals from Dave McMillan, including one from the penalty spot, weren’t enough to see off the home side.

Bray took the lead after just four minutes after Jason Byrne slotted away following UCD’s failure to deal with a dangerous cross. It took fifteen minutes for the Students the respond, as Gary Burke controlled beautifully before crossing for McMillan to level the scores.

Just before half-time, Darren Quigley was sent off, leaving Bray without a goalkeeper since they had not brought one on their bench. Winger Daire Doyle took over the duties, but could not keep out McMillan’s penalty to give UCD the lead.

Despite being down to ten men, the hosts pulled a goal back with ten minutes left to earn a draw. UCD’s next game is away to Cork City on Friday at 7.45pm.

UCD currently sit bottom of the table on goal-difference.

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here is hardly an Irish person who does not know the name Sonia O’Sullivan, and rightly so. For almost the entirety of the ‘90s, Sonia O’Sullivan was one of the stars in the hugely competitive field of 5000m athletics. Her career was marked with numerous successes, including an Olympic silver medal in 2000, making her the first Irish female athlete to win an Olympic medal in track and field.

She added to her Olympic silver by winning gold in the 1995 World Athletics Championships and then going on to win two World Cross Country competitions and several European championships. Following her retirement, O’Sullivan has remained in the public eye as a trusted analyst because of her expertise and experience when performing on the world stage.

Ireland’s first Olympic gold medallist in years, Katie Taylor, became an Irish superstar after winning the lightweight division of Olympic boxing.

Taylor had been a big hit in the boxing community before the Olympics, winning four successive world titles before coming to the Olympics.

On the day of the final, everyone in Ireland was glued to the television, including thousands from her native Bray, to see her make history, not just for Ireland, but women everywhere as the first woman to win an Olympic gold in boxing.

Obviously, the most recent success for Irish women came from the current rugby team, after they had a fantastic season winning their first ever Grand Slam. Fiona Coughlan led her team to four consecutive victories, including a 25-0 drubbing of an England side who had won seven consecutive Championships, including six Grand Slams in that time.

These performances had set Ireland up with a shot at the Slam in Milan on St. Patrick’s Day this year. A hardfought game against an improving Italian side, in very bad conditions, was ultimately won thanks to a resolute defence and the kicking of Niamh Briggs.

In the world of professional ladies’ football, Ireland boasts one of bestknown ‘keepers in the business; Emma Byrne. Byrne has been a permanent fixture in the team of the incredibly successful Arsenal Ladies’ FC, with whom she has won 26 major trophies since her arrival in early 2000.

Byrne has represented her country at every level and is Ireland’s mostcapped goalkeeper, with a hugely impressive 97 caps to her name. A number of other Irish players have been integral to Arsenal’s success throughout the years, including Ciara Grant, who is not to be confused with the current

“A number of other Irish players have been integral to Arsenal’s success throughout the years, including Ciara Grant, who is not to be confused with the current UCD star and Ireland international of the same name”

UCD star and Ireland international of the same name.

But not all the women to have flown the flag for Ireland have been so recent. Maeve Kyle received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Sports Council thanks to her three Olympic appearances, competing in numerous track competitions from 100m to 800m, including appearances in the semi-finals of both 400m and 800m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

In 1966, she won bronze in the European Indoor Athletic Championships in the 400m. In addition to her successful running career, she was a world-class

“Future star and former UCD student, Annalise Murphy, has already made a name for herself by coming fourth in the Olympic Laser Radial sailing competition”

hockey player, being capped for Ireland 58 times and being named in the World All Star team in both 1953 and 1959.In 2008 she received an OBE for her work both inside and outside of athletics.

Future star and former UCD student, Annalise Murphy, has already made a name for herself by coming fourth in the Olympic Laser Radial sailing competition, in which she came painfully close to a gold medal after winning four out of four races during the opening of the regatta.

Unfortunately, she was overtaken at the finish of the final race and finished fourth overall. Still, her achievement was nothing to scoff at as it was her personal best at a world-class regatta, and will only spur her on to greatness in the future.

Last year also saw the Paralympics take place in London. Ireland did remarkably well in these games as well, boasting 16 medals. Bethany Firth won gold for Ireland in the 100 meters backstroke, and female paralympians brought home 3 silver and 3 bronze, giving Ireland its best result since 1988, coming 19th overall.

Irish Women have also excelled in golf, with twins Leona and Lisa Maguire showing real promise. Lisa is ranked 35th in the world while her sister is ranked 6th. In 2012 Leona was the first Irish golfer to win the Irish Girls’ Open Stroke Play Championship, beating an international field by eight shots.

She was also a part of the winning 2012 Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup team, beating the USA. Then we have Derval O’Rourke, the 2006 winner of the 60m hurdle IAAF World Indoor Championships and the first Irish woman to ever win a World Indoor Championship in Athletics and she has broken the Irish national record twice in her field. Unfortunately, in 2011, she was unable to compete in her semi-final race during the World Championship of Athletics because of an injury.

There are many more sporting Irish women who deserve praise, and this is by no means a definitive list: golfer Stephanie Meadow won her first British Women’s Open Amateur title this year, Audrey O’Flynn is a rising star in hockey and Sycerika McMahon broke nine Irish swimming records at the European Short Course Championships in France.

Ireland has a proud tradition of producing top female athletes, and the next generation look ready and eager to take up the mantle. As the demand for better funding grows, so too do the opportunities for female athletes in Ireland. If the past is anything to go by, we have a bright future ahead of us.

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epending on what sport you like to watch, chances are that one of your favourite teams is coming in to the squeaky-bum-time of their season, as Alex Ferguson might say once and be constantly quoted about. If you are a fan of both football and rugby, as any self-loathing idiot should be, then this week represents both excitement and despair for you.

The quarter-finals of any tournament are the best part of any tournament, if you ask The Badger, which you always should. The quarter-finals are when things really start getting down to business, with every team capable of beating everyone else. Also, more teams means that it’s more likely that your team is still in the competition.

In fact, The Badger firmly believes that if you are a fan of a tournament in which the quarter-finals are not competitive, then you should stop watching that tournament because it is boring and predictable, like the All-Ireland.

Even the Carling Cup is more exciting than the first few months of either AllIreland.

Even though, logically, the semifinals and the final should contain even better quality than the quarter-finals, it doesn’t always work out that way. When there are only eight teams left in a competition, you get high quality teams facing off against each other without the crippling fear of a loss meaning falling at the last hurdle. Athletes hate falling at the last hurdle, just ask Gail Devers.

The Badger knows, well, everything, but that includes the fact that sometimes the quarter-finals aren’t quite as good as the semi-finals or even the final. When that is the case, The Badger couldn’t care less, because it means that the tournament is getting progressively better, and that is something that only the dullest buzzkill would complain about.

So while the American football fans still have to wait another five months before their tiny season starts up again, only having a glorified version of picking teams at the start of P.E. to keep them occupied, rugby fans can bask in the glory of the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, the ones that the two-time defending champions weren’t able to qualify for.

But earlier than the Heineken Cup is the Champions League, where again the defending champions couldn’t make it through to the knockout stages, as we get to see Messi got face-tocrotch with Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo take on the flares that the Turkish fans with inevitably throw at him.

So tell all your friends, maybe quarter-finals week will even become a tradition bigger than the final itself. In terms of consistent quality and entertainment, this week is one of the bestkept secrets in sport. But don’t expect it to stay that way, now that The Badger’s out of the bag.

OSbserver P O R T

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The University Observer | 3 April 2013

UCD school Harlequins to stay second UCD 33 - 19 Belfast Harlequins

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ast Saturday’s Ulster Bank Division 1B action saw second place UCD RFC taking on fifth place Belfast Harlequins at the Belfield Bowl.

UCD came into the game boasting the second best offensive and defensive records of the teams in the league, while Belfast were coming off a 12-7 loss to Dublin University. The visitors were looking to avenge their 41-20 defeat back in October.

UCD emerged as the more confident side in the first half, stuffing the advances of the Ulstermen, and capitalising on mistakes early and frequently.

Belfast looked to be the more aggressive of the two, but it was UCD who were able to pick Belfast apart within the opening ten minutes, with Jamie Glynn, James Thornton and Barry Daly providing a confident platform for the backs.

A Stephen Murphy interception, following a successful Belfast scrum, gave him room to scramble from the midfield and go over for a soft try under the posts, followed by a quick conversion.

Harlequins were not afraid to mix up their attack early, as Mark Best kicked frequently and combined well with his

wingers. It was a recurring sight of the game to see Belfast camped on Collidge’s try-line.

Despite the pressure, Collidge were able to mount an attack of their own, thanks largely to the solid defence provided by the surrounding backs. A lineout that was coolly controlled by David Doyle led to a dangerously fluid passing exchange by Thornton and Murphy, with Murphy putting away his second try and Thornton quickly following up with a second UCD conversion.

Five minutes later, UCD began to build on their lead further by putting in a quick try when Daly charged over thanks to some good work from Alex Kelly. A third straight conversion to make it 21-0 was followed by five minutes of near uninterrupted UCD pressure, with a new long ball approach that kept Belfast on the back foot.

Scrums aplenty made up the following exchanges.

Harlequins’ Captain, Lawrence Babe, screamed for an emotional response from his teammates, but these emotions did little to stifle a UCD’s dominance. Some superb interceptions from Kelly, Daly and David Doyle kept the game as an explosive spectacle to

watch, with each man sprinting from their own 22 metre lines to the away side’s try-line.

Doyle was able to touch over and his try was then converted to give Collidge complete control of the game. Belfast closed the opening half inside the home side’s five metre line, visibly frustrated with themselves. As the whistle blew for half-time, Belfast were staring down the barrel of a 28-0 deficit.

The second half continued in the same vein as the first, with UCD punishing the visitor’s failure to convert their chances in the cruellest of manners, as another interception run by Daly resulted in UCD’s fifth try without reply. Thornton missed for the first time in the game as the home team led 33-0.

Belfast would spend the next while within the UCD five metre line, as players threw their bodies on the line in an attempt to gain any sense of momentum, yet they still had problems with finishing as they left behind a variety of missed opportunities.

These problems would give way to frustration as Adam Clarkin for UCD and Niall Annet for Belfast both received yellow cards. UCD were scrappy in their defence, but lost their edge mentally and looked visibly worn down by the smothering Belfast pressure. The attritional nature second half, which centred heavily on rucks and scrums, allowed Belfast to get the better of their hosts in the physical exchanges.

A missed tackle by Alex Kelly off the back of a ruck deep within the UCD half allowed Sean O’Connell to bite down on his mouthpiece and put away his side’s first points of the game. What the try lacked in finesse, it more than made up for in grit.

UCD responded with their final attack of the day, with a successful scrum opening up angles for Danny Kenny who looked certain to score before being denied brilliantly by Belfast’s Michael Heaney. Heaney then sparked a stuttering Harlequins offence from a line-out, which allowed Michael Ferguson to secure a second try for the away side, with Heaney knocking over the extras. UCD’s lead had been cut to a relatively comfortable 33-14.

With UCD’s composure now in question, Belfast switched to a long ball strategy to once again find themselves in the all too familiar position of the UCD five metre line. Belfast used a line-out to create the their most crowd-

nents and were rightly outplayed by more technical sides.

This was no glorious failure, it was a humiliation. Is there any point in struggling to qualify for a major tournament if we arrive woefully unprepared to compete? After all, football is entertainment, so would we not prefer to attempt to entertain and to reward those fans paying upwards of €50 to sit in a freezing stadium and watch their nation compete? It’s not like we have much to lose.

We are unlikely to qualify now. Even if we do, success would just be delaying inevitable failure at the tournament.

Why not try and play a more progressive style? We would still defeat the likes of San Marino, Kazakhstan and the Faroe Islands. Draws with poor Sweden and Austria sides are hardly outstanding achievements.

Would we not have preferred to see some guile, invention and ambition from an Irish side, even if we were to ultimately lose 5-3? The FAI have massive debts and the fans are reluctant to spend the little disposable income they have to watch us struggle to beat Armenia 1-0. They want excitement. They want to entertainment. They want change.

Obviously, the question then arises; if not Trapattoni, then who? Brian McDermott is the current favourite, since leaving Reading. Chris Hughton should make a fine Ireland manager one day, but is unlikely to leave Norwich in the near future. Mick McCarthy has been mentioned, but alas his teams are not exactly renowned for their free-flowing football.

During his time at Bolton, Owen Coyle was often talked about as a potential Ireland manager and perhaps his somewhat cavalier approach to football is what we need. However, if we are to bemoan Trapattoni’s lack of invention, it would seem hypocritical to not engage the imagination when searching for a successor.

There are three simple criteria that a successor must fulfil. Firstly, they must be committed to a passing, progressive style of football. Secondly, he must be prepared to reside in the UK and regularly attend matches involving current and prospective Irish players. Finally, he must believe in the Irish players and their capabilities, and treat them and the job with respect. The litany of players Trapattoni has fallen out with during his tenure as manager has become farcical.

“The final whistle was a welcome sound to a rapidly fading UCD side”

pleasing attack of the day, as a sly ball in to Paul Rea allowed the large man to bull forward and ground the ball for another five points, although Heaney was unable to convert.

The final whistle was a welcome sound to a rapidly fading UCD side, who seemed to be struggling to grapple with a Belfast team that had finally carved out its sweet spot. Harlequins, once in the driver’s seat, fully capitalised on a tired UCD who lacked the fortitude to go a full eighty minutes.

At the end of the day, however, it is UCD who leave with five points and remain second in the table, four points behind a Ballynahinch team who have played one less game. UCD’s next game is this Saturday away to Ballymena at 2.30pm.

UCD: Andy Boyle, Sam Coghlan-Murray, Alex Kelly, Stephen Murphy, Barry Daly, James Thornton, Jamie Glynn, James Tracy, Risteard Byrne (Capt), Rory Harrison, Shane Grannell, Emmet MacMahon, Conor Gilsenan, David Doyle, Danny Kenny.

Belfast Harlequins: Adam D’Arcy, Rory Scholes, Ryan Martin, William Stewart, Roger Kirkwood, Mark Best, Michael Heaney, Mark McGrath, Niall Annett, Neil Simpson, Michael Ferguson, Paul Rea, Lawrence Babe (Capt), Darryl Marshall, Sean O’Connell

By Jack Walsh

In Trap we rust Following back-to-back draws against Sweden and Austria, Robert Ranson presents the case for change in manager of the national team

T

rapattoni needs to go, and now. Never mind the result, which was depressingly predictable, just listen to his post-match interview with RTÉ’s Tony O’Donoghue. Responding to O’Donoghue’s post-match questioning about whether he would be considering his position in the aftermath of Ireland’s 2-2 draw, an indignant Trapattoni spoke with venom.

“Why? Why?! You remember we are Ireland. You know we are not Germany… or England.” Ouch, that hurts. But hold on, England? Does he mean the same England which had just struggled to a draw with a superior Montenegro team who remain two points ahead of them? That is the same Montenegro team that is only four years removed from finishing nine points behind Ireland in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. While we are neither Germany nor England, it is not the veracity of his comments that matters. What’s important is the righteous, incredulous manner in which Trapattoni spoke. It was a moment where the mask slipped. It was a moment where he revealed how he feels about Irish players and even Ireland itself: we are inferior.

We cannot compete with the larger

countries and we certainly cannot attempt to play a progressive, passing style. We must rely on organisation, physicality, commitment and force of will. Accordingly, Trapattoni’s newfound infatuation with Conor Sammon should come as no surprise.

In Trapattoni’s eyes, he is the embodiment of the perfect Irish player: industrious, committed and, most importantly, willing to follow instructions. He is also completely bereft of any semblance of flair, imagination or creativity; perfect for Trapattoni and perfect for Ireland.

Many people might agree that, with a population of 4.5 million people, we cannot hope to compete with the larger European countries. With a shambolic football association and poorly run youth systems, we cannot hope to compete with graduates of La Masia and Clairefontaine. Undoubtedly, there is a degree of truth in that, but to say so is missing the point fantastically.

Look back to the 2012 European Championships; we struggled through to the play-offs and, by a fantastic stroke of luck, we were drawn against a poor Estonia side and reached the Euros full of hope. Yet, adhering rigidly to Trapattoni’s instructions, we were happy to cede possession to our oppo-

“It was a moment where the mask slipped. It was a moment where [Trapattoni] revealed how he feels about Irish players and even Ireland itself; we are inferior”

Given that the recent revelations about Michael Lowry have brought the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal back in the news, it is unlikely that Denis O’Brien would withdraw the funding he provides for half of Trapattoni’s wages, should a new manager to be appointed in his stead. The reported €500,000 per annum contribution is a minuscule amount for someone as wealthy as O’Brien, who would undoubtedly welcome some good PR. Political corruption, legal findings, monopolistic media ownership, editorial independence; these things all pale in comparison to the importance of football, of course. Use the blood money, find a suitable candidate, let us believe again and then let us fail gloriously once more.

It’s time for the FAI to reject Trapattoni’s cowardly pragmatism and embrace our natural creativity and reckless optimism. Football can be artistry, and this country has always respected and embraced the arts. If they are in need of further convincing, they need only open up a copy of Worstward Ho and take some inspiration from Samuel Beckett; Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Sack Trap.

The University Observer | 3 April 2013

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