niversity U bserver O
the
sport
UCD
End of Year Reviews UCDSU Officers
x v i i i
·
Vince Gilligan Creator of Breaking Bad
The year in sport v o l u m e
OTWO
Avicii · Magnetic Fields · Buzzcocks i s s u e
XI i
·
w w w. u n i v e r s i t y o b s e r v e r . i e
USI preferendum on third-level fees postponed by Katie Hughes · News Editor
The Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) “preferendum” to decide what the national student stance on thirdlevel education payment should be was postponed from last week’s Congress until the next National Council. An Emergency USI Council is being held on Thursday to decide what course of action should be taken for the preferendum. USI President Gary Redmond believes that the most likely course of action would be an Emergency Congress being called, at the earliest, twenty-eight days from Thursday’s Council. The only item on the agenda of the Emergency Council would then be the preferendum. UCD Students’ Union President Pat de Brún was disappointed with the postponement of the preferendum, “I’m very worried that the can will get kicked down the road and that people who don’t want this preferendum will use it as an excuse not to hold it, and that’s why I was concerned. It was possible that at Special Congress we may not get quorum or not all colleges will bring their full delegations, and I’d be very worried that it won’t occur.” Redmond disagreed with these sentiments and felt that despite the postponement, it was paramount that the preferendum go ahead with no delays. “I think that a decision will be made quite quickly, and it’s of the utmost importance that we make the decision before the new officer board comes into office, because at that stage we’re six months away from the next budget and I think that it would be a ludicrous and farcical situation if we hadn’t got a comprehensive funding policy in place for the 1st of July. So while we’re taking some more time to consult membership, I wouldn’t accept for a minute that we’re kicking the can down the road.” However, de Brún’s statement that “those that are in favour of continuing the free fees policy would be very happy for the preferendum to not go ahead because that would mean we continue with the same policy,” was confirmed by Free Education for Everyone (FEE) Galway organiser, Joseph Loughnane, who stated that “we (FEE) believe that the USI should stand for free education and they should not really be putting these other options to students, because these other options are almost like they’re giving in to what the government wants.” Loughnane continued to say that FEE were glad the preferendum did not go ahead as planned, “We thought that was a great decision because we believed that if the vote had gone ahead during congress it would have been very undemocratic because a lot of … the students were not being asked what voting model they would have chosen, so we were glad that it was postponed. We just hope now that this means that the preferendum will go back to the students.”
The eight members of the Irish University Entrepreneurship Forum team who met at the UCDTCD Innovation Academy on Thursday March 29th. For full story see page two. Photographer: Anita Murphy
Students’ Union Loyalty Card losses amount to approximately €30,000 by Denis Vaughan
UCD Students’ Union have officially suspended the loyalty card scheme following their announcement in November that the service would be withdrawn in order to cut its losses, which now stand at approximately thirty thousand euro. Students who were availing of the scheme may now no longer redeem the points earned on their cards. The card was introduced by last year’s sabbatical team and was made available to students during the 2010/2011 term. Current Students’ Union President, Pat de Brún, defended his decision to remove it, stating, “Obviously when all the finances came to light I knew we had to make some cutbacks, and this was one area
I thought it was pretty reasonable to cut back on because the maintenance costs were quite high. The second reason was the U-Card being rolled out across the campus, and while the loyalty card was an excellent initiative in itself when it started, the roll out of the campus U-Card undermined it, I felt.” De Brún also mentioned the introduction of laser card facilities, stating that it would “roll into the overall business plans of the shops.” However, the introduction of laser card facilities had also been promised by the Students’ Union for the 2010/2011 academic year. Former Students’ Union President, Paul Lynam, stated at the time that “we mean to introduce a loyalty and a credit card simultaneously,” although this credit card scheme has yet to be in-
troduced and the loyalty card has since been suspended. The establishment of the loyalty card scheme and the introduction of laser card facilities in SU outlets were part of the 2010/2011 Union’s priority list, which was formulated in July 2010. This list aspired to “make financial supports available to students who are most at risk of financial problems and avoid any cutbacks to vital student supports.” De Brún explained that there had been other costs in addition to the general running costs of the loyalty card system. “The running costs [of the loyalty card] were in the region of twenty to thirty thousand euro annually, so that’s the saving we’re going to make, but there were additional set-up costs in that. There was some capital invest-
ment required in the tills in the shop but I wouldn’t really put that cost on the loyalty cards because we did need new tills anyway. It has improved our till system.” When asked if the U-Card would be incorporated into the Students’ Union shops, de Brún responded that “it may or it may not be, we haven’t made a decision on that yet. I’m due to meet the project leaders for the U-Card in the coming week and we’re going to discuss it further then, but we need to very carefully weigh up the pros and cons.” De Brún also apologised for the large sign that is still on display in the Students’ Union shop in the Library building reminding students to show their loyalty card. “That is misleading, I actually wasn’t aware that there was one there.”
UCDSU LTD to become effective this week by Katie Hughes · News Editor
Should Union Council approve the memorandum and articles of UCDSU Ltd at Union Council this week, UCDSU Ltd will be set up as effective immediately after council. According to Students’ Union President Pat de Brún, the change will not be as drastic as many people believed it would be upon hearing of the incorporation. “I want to clarify because I think that people … assume [there will be] change in terms of how our affairs are managed and the entire structure. In reality all it really means is that we will have a Board of Directors responsible for financial oversight and that we’ll have to audit our accounts every year, that’s the only really major impact that becoming a company will have.” De Brún stated that the Board of
Directors’ main role will be to provide financial supervision, “Technically they have to follow the memorandum, articles, and the Constitution, make sure everything is running smoothly. They’re non-executive directors; they don’t have any decision making power. They have a role in financial oversight and to ensure that the finances are being run smoothly and to appoint external auditors and make sure the accounts are done every year.” The structure of the Board of Directors will closely mirror that of the new Finance Committee, including former presidents, a legal advisor for the Union, and an accounting expert, “it’s similar to the way the Union of Students’ in Ireland (USI) are doing it; they’re setting up companies as well.” It has not yet been decided who will be taking on the role of accounting expert,
although de Brún confirmed that former Union financial advisor, Dave Carmody, would not be filling the position, “As far as I am aware he is [still employed by the University] but when it comes to our Constitution, he has no role in there.” Under the new structure the recently instated General Manager has taken on most of the duties of Carmody’s role; “We’re still finalising a few things, we’d like a commercial person as well under the General Manager but we’re still ironing that out. We need to see what our resources are like.” UCDSU Ltd is set up as a company within the current Students’ Union to manage its affairs, “while the company is managing the affairs, the Union still owns them. The Union owns the company and the students own the Union. In the new constitution, we created powers that Union companies could be
set up but it’s not the case that everything is becoming a company – you can move certain aspects into a company but it’s still owned by the Union as it is.” Because of this, all students coming into UCD will not automatically become members of UCDSU Ltd, as it is a body managing the affairs of the Union of which the students are members, “it’ll be still owned by the students on a purely technical level, you need to name a minimum of seven members - we just named the five sabbatical officers and two others, but they don’t have any power and they don’t have any liability.” The company is one limited by guarantee, not shares, “This is a company that is just mirroring the constitution and the ownership will lie with the membership so it’s not something that can bought or sold, it’s not a commodity.”