niversity U bserver O
the
volume xviii · issue ii · www.universityobserver.ie nobel laureate
Prof. Peter Doherty
PSYCHIATRY’S THIRD WAY
talks about his legacy and the challenge of sustainablity
health & science
IRELAND’S CONFLICTED PERCEPTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS
Features
ASH
REPUBLIC OF LOOSE RUBBERBANDITS ENTER SHIKARI GHOSTPOET
OTWO
UCDSU AgSoc apologise for damage at Goat pub Welfare Furniture, window and public property amends destroyed ‘1000 Ambulance and Gardaí called to the scene Condoms’ SU President condemns AgSoc’s scheme behaviour ________________________________________ Kevin Beirne
________________________________________ UCD Students’ Union marked World Contraception Day on the 26th of September by giving out one thousand free condoms. The original plan was for each condom to be numbered, and for each owner of a numbered condom to post their story of how they used it on the 1000condoms.com website, which has accumulated twenty-one stories at the time of going to print. According to UCD’s Welfare Officer Rachel Breslin, the plan encountered some difficulty, “The issue arose that even when we posted it on Facebook before [World Contraception Day], people were saying ‘I want to get involved, what if I’m not in that day and don’t get a condom?’”. It was then decided that the numbering would be scrapped, but the website (1000condoms.com) would stay up and condoms would still be given out, which allowed the campaign to spread further than the 1,000 recipients of a free condom, as everyone was now encouraged to share their stories. “Sex is for everyone. It can be good or bad, or very mediocre!” jokes Breslin, but she also points out that there is no pressure to do it now; “I was very keen to make sure that people didn’t feel pressured into having sex”. As well as recording past experiences, Breslin says the website can be used to say “I haven’t found someone, this is what happened to my condom” and says “that would actually be a really good outcome of the campaign”. Breslin deemed the campaign economical, “if we look at what was done around sexual health in the past there were workshops, we had various demonstrators in and I looked at those, and they cost money - they cost more money than we spent on the posters and the condoms, which we already ordered in anyway, so I certainly feel it was very cost effective”.
The idea for the campaign came from people being “a little bit afraid to talk about sex, and if they are talking about sex it’s more the whole “laddish” idea or the “laddish” concept of sex and that all sex is great and that they maybe have to make up a myth about their sexual experiences” explains Breslin, “so what I wanted was a campaign that encouraged people to wear condoms but to encourage more conversation about it and get people to talk about their bad experiences of sex, which do exist”. Breslin says that she is “really pleased with how it’s gone and I think it has encouraged open dialogue about sex; it really put forward the message that people have had experiences that were awkward, experiences that were clumsy... it is ok to talk about it”. Read Phillipa White’s Opinion piece on the ‘1000 Condoms, 1000 Stories’ scheme on page 13 of this issue.
A series of trees lay broken in the aftermath of the AgSoc event in The Goat ________________________________________ Katie Hughes Goatstown Road”. News Editor According to the source, it took ________________________________________ many years of liaising with the local UCD’s Agricultural Science Society county councillors to have the trees (AgSoc) held a fundraising event in planted, so it was met with “great the Goat Public House in Goatstown regret” that a number of them had on the 28th September. The evening, been destroyed. Auditor of AgSoc, the proceeds of which went to John Douglas, refused to confirm that charity, turned into alcohol-induced it had been AgSoc members who broke mayhem with both the Gardaí and an the trees, “I seen trees broken this ambulance being called at different morning but again, I didn’t see it going stages of the evening. on […] I seen five or six trees broken”. Complaints were received by A representative from the Goat the University Observer from an stated that the students stayed for an anonymous source stating that “from hour and a half after the bar closed, approximately 10.30pm until at least refusing to leave when asked to do so; 3am there was shouting, swearing, additionally, “they broke tables and urinating in public, breaking of glasses chairs – one table and five chairs”. and bottles, and the main reason I am An ambulance was called to the contacting you, the destruction (by Goat after a girl allegedly put her way of snapping in half ) of a number head through a window. Douglas was of recently planted trees on the unsure as to exactly what happened;
“not too sure, she was stitched up and whatever had to be done with her, cleaned up”. Douglas stated that “we didn’t want anything to upset anyone, we just wanted to have a bit of fun; it’s for charity sure, we just wanted to raise money for charity, sure that’s what AgSoc have been doing for years, any nights they did was for charity”. The source of the complaint, who is also a UCD alumnus, was “really appalled at the manner in which these students behaved and [the] picture that they have now portrayed of UCD Agricultural Science Students/UCD - I would expect a lot more from them”. Student Union President Pat de Brún commented on the negative effect that the incident could have on events organised by other societies in future; “Obviously it’s hugely damaging to the reputation of students in UCD. It puts future society, Union and sports club events in danger in terms of what venues we can use”. Douglas insists that, in order to prevent a similar situation arising again, he would “find out who’s causing the trouble, find out who the messers are - it’s not acceptable, we would e-mail the members, that behaviour won’t be allowed on any Ag nights, it’s not the Ag way”. AgSoc have made a formal apology for their members’ behaviour on the night. The Goat will not be seeking compensation from AgSoc. Read Kate Rothwell’s analysis of this story on page 5.
De Brún files complaint against the University Times ________________________________________ Katie Hughes News Editor ________________________________________ UCD Students’ Union President Pat de Brún has filed a complaint to Trinity Students’ Union following the publication of “wholly inappropriate” comments aimed at a former UCDSU sabbatical officer in one of Trinity College’s student papers, the University Times. Overall, de Brún considered the article, a satirical piece entitled ‘You should have gone to UCD’ to be “funny
and in good spirits, just general rivalry banter” but deemed jibes made at last year’s UCD Ents Officer Jonny Cosgrove unacceptable. “I have no problem at all with any form of college or any other form of media looking at the performance of an elected officer, that’s part and parcel of the job. I think it becomes inappropriate when the person has left the role and gone back to being a student. When that person is a member of this Union I think we have a duty to look after them.”
Though de Brún insists that he filed a complaint to “let them [UT] know of my dissatisfaction and the Union’s dissatisfaction with that article”, the Editor of the University Times, Ronan Costello, insists that “my reading of it, I wouldn’t have seen it as a complaint from UCDSU, I think it was a complaint on behalf of a friend really”. Though Costello says that he will be issuing neither an apology nor a retraction as “it was a satirical opinion piece, it wasn’t meant to be taken as seriously as people have taken it”,
he concedes that “it was in our Freshers’ Week edition, targeted specifically towards Freshers, it was just to make those who were coming in feel good about their choice”. “There’s an inevitability about the reaction to it. Some people were going to like it and some people weren’t. It’s doing the rounds now; it’s one of the most read articles we’ve ever posted. So I’m guessing that more people liked it than didn’t. “When you put something like that up, there’s a Facebook widget
there and it would get recommended by people if they like it. I thought it was a satirical opinion piece and it was filed under such a headline on the website. The writer’s byline is Spoofer-in-Chief”. De Brún has received a reply from Costello which did not include an apology, “it was along the lines of it is appropriate to comment on things of that nature and past officers because they were once elected”. Analysis on page 5