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More controversy over License to Reside following incident on Blackrock Campus
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Poor attendance recorded at Gilmore’s 250 Meeting
by daniel keenan · news editor
The Student Legal Service (SLS) in UCD has once again called for changes in the license to reside, the document which substitutes as a lease for students living on UCD residence, after an incident on the Blackrock Campus. The incident arose as part of a cleaning and storage issue at the campus. According to UCD Students’ Union Welfare Officer, Mícheál Gallagher: “A number of students had been emailing me concerned over an email sent which essentially said that there kitchen utensils were to be disposed of, if they weren’t collected. The system as it operates in Blackrock Halls is that, between 10am and 12pm everyday, cleaners come in and clean up all the kitchens. However, if there are pots or pans left around, they move them into boxes and leave them in a different location.” The residents can collect the utensils from storage, but management in Blackrock Halls reports that some of these items had not been collected and were now a health and safety issue. “They’ve essentially issued the ultimatum that if not collected by Monday at 5pm, that the resident’s material will be disposed of,” says Gallagher. “A number of residents got in contact with me, quite alarmed because there’s no reference to seizing a person’s item under the licence to reside.” Chairperson of the SLS Patrick Fitzgerald says: “Nowhere in the license does it say that UCD has the power to seize personal possessions in this manner. The constitutional right to property under Article 40.3.2 was infringed in this instance. This incident further shows the need for systematic reform of UCD license to reside and UCD should now consider re-drafting it as a lease.” This is the third time that the SLS have called for the abolition of the license to reside, having criticised it earlier in the year due to changes allowing residential assistants to film inside students’ apartments, and later saying that it takes away the legal rights of students. The SLS claim that a conventional lease system is the way residence should operate. “If UCD Residences adopted a lease, students would enjoy a right of appeal to the PRTB. This would allow students to challenge a decision of UCD cheaply in an independent forum. This would ensure greater transparency than we have now and ensure students enjoy rights as tenants. The present situation where the appeal process is operated by UCD has led to an arbitrary system that truly lacks proper procedure, transparency and independence.” The incident at the Blackrock campus has since been resolved. According to Gallagher: “I put forward a proposal that the deadline will be extended past Monday and that also instead of the items being disposed of, I could arrange a collection with SVP, so taking it as a ‘if residents don’t collect it by a certain date, we’ll take it as a kind donation to SVP.’”
by sean o’grady · deputy news Editor
On Wednesday November 7th, a public meeting for UCD and IADT students was held in Stillorgan Park Hotel for the Gilmore’s 250 campaign. The campaign focuses on the government’s plan to increase fees by €250 each year for the next three years. The meeting was not well attended. UCDSU Campaigns and Communications Officer Paddy Guiney says: “The meeting wasn’t well attended by students; there were county councillors, members of staff, community members. My main aim is to put people on the streets for November 19th. Nothing will be 100% successful. If there are 1,000 people at the meeting or two, we’d still be putting them same amount
of pressure into the campaign.” UCDSU President Rachel Breslin says she did not expect a larger turn out at the meeting because “from UCD’s experience, it’s not something that students hugely engage in,” but she doesn’t believe that the low turnout will translate to a poor turnout at the demonstration on November 19th. “I think that we certainly had the same worries [about low turnout] last year for different meetings and for all sorts of things. Someone said to me afterwards: ‘Why would I want to go to a meeting?’ There is a great difference between a meeting and a protest and our focus has been, and will continue to be the protest, because that is what our objective of this campaign is: to get students out onto the street protest-
ing,” says Breslin The meeting had a handful of TDs in attendance, however Breslin says she was unhappy with the lack of political presence. “The TDs in Dublin South have been very unresponsive, especially Eamon Gilmore himself. We would have liked more TDs to have been there but their complete disregard for the student movement was shown in the fact that they did not show,” she explains. The meetings focus was on the effects that such an increase will have on students and their education. IADT SU President Marie Farrell was worried about how the increase will affect students who are struggling at present with fees: “The severe financial pressure that students across the country
are under is phenomenal. We have students in our office everyday crying, worried, not having a clue what to do because they have to make the choice between getting a bus ticket or eating for the week.” When asked about the objective of the Gilmore’s 250 campaign, Breslin says they want to put “continued pressure on Eamon Gilmore until he resigns. These promises were made with full knowledge of the economic situation and the realities and they were blatantly disregarded without any sort of apology and there is this continued lack of interest and lack of awareness of what students are going through.”
SU Presidents to oppose amendment to Universities Act by aoife valentine · deputy editor UCD Students’ Union President Rachel Breslin has come together with the SU Presidents of the other Irish universities to oppose the ‘Arrangement of Heads’ of the Universities (Amendment) Bill 2012. The Heads of the Bill call for an increase in the power given to the Minister for Education and the Department of Education when it comes to determining pay, remuneration and staff levels. Breslin feels this affords the Minister more power than is necessary and that it infringes on the University’s autonomy. She commented that: “By taking the power out of the university and the autonomy away from the university and giving it to a minister who is not involved in the day to day running and not involved in the sector particularly, and who can be influenced by populist choices and who can come under pres-
sure from the media, then it is taking a core function of the university, which is to run itself.” Roughly 80% of the University’s budget is pent on pay and remuneration, so this is an important aspect of how the University decides to run itself. Breslin however fears that should this power be granted to the Minister, they may also cross lines in terms of interference with the University’s running. She fears that provisions that allow the Minister to withdraw funding from certain universities or even certain departments within certain universities, could mean that we’ll see departments shutting down without the adequate staff to keep them running. She says: “It could have wide ranging repercussions. Though I do feel that there needs to be action following on from the scandals and the massive
overspending both in UCD and other areas on wages, but that an enforcement issue rather than this issue on determining pay and this Bill doesn’t really address those issues at all.” Having spoken to other Students’ Union Presidents across the country, they plan to “take an action and publicly state that this isn’t a bill that Students’ Unions feel would help the quality of our education or the efficiency of running of universities. We intend on publicly making sure all stakeholders from the university to the government to the public and the media are aware of that.” The University are also in opposition to the Bill, with Breslin commenting that: “I think the University are likewise worried about taking this autonomy away from the management team.”
The Bill put forward by Minister Ruairi Quinn has taken all parties by surprise. Though it was previously known that a Bill was being pushed through to deal with the issues of overspending on pay and bonuses, as has happened in recent years. However Breslin states: This Bill doesn’t tackle these issues at all. It’s much wider in the powers it does give, but narrow in that it doesn’t actually address that issue.” The Union of Students in Ireland will not be taking part in the action planned by the Students’ Unions’ Presidents, as following a discussion with USI, Breslin felt that “because there are two universities that aren’t in the USI, that it would be something that it would be good for us to, as universities, address it as one statement and one voice.”