VOL. XXV, Issue 4, UO

News

Comment

Government taken to court over climate change inaction Shivani Shukla

Can we expect UCD to take a stand - on anything?

Claudia Dalby P6

P4

VOL. XXV, ISSUE 4

Gaeilge

Sports

Hugh Mac Giolla Chearra P15

Should all UCD clubs be funded equally?

Rory Clarke & Colman Stanley P19

An poipín – an fiú an argóint?

THE UNIVERSITY

OBSERVER 21ST NOVEMBER 2018

UNIVERSITYOBSERVER.IE

Some students in Res received discount and reimbursement, UCDSU President clarifies Dylan O’Neill DEPUTY EDITOR In an interview with The University Observer, UCDSU President Barry Murphy addressed confusion over comments he made at the Town Hall meeting organised by the SU on 1st November. The meeting saw students living in on campus accommodation bring complaints and issues they have faced to the Union, due to the ongoing construction in the Glenomena and Roebuck sites.

At the Town Hall meeting, issues such as the late hour of concrete pouring and the early hours at which construction began were discussed. Murphy stated he had been informed by UCD Estates that the concrete had needed to be poured at night, “two days before the Town Hall meeting, so it would have been on the Tuesday morning before the Town Hall.”

However, when speaking to former Education Officer Robert Sweeney on whether or not the impact of the construction on students’ experience in UCD was discussed while he sat on the residence review committee, he stated “I consulted all members of the Union Executive.

Further feedback from the exec was then structured and sent to members of the residence review committee. The primary concern of all at this meeting was mitigating the impact and ensuring the Safety, of members of the UCD Community.”

A powerpoint presentation on the “Construction Mitigation Planning Residences Masterplan Phase 1” was distributed to members of the SU’s executive committee and sabbatical officers on the 1st March 2018. In this powerpoint, the impact of the noise from concrete pouring “(extend outside normal hours)” was highlighted. Exam times were also highlighted as a “Vulnerable Time” on the powerpoint. This means that members of the executive committee and sabbatical team would have been aware of the potential impact of noise by concrete pouring, months before the Town Meeting. Murphy also stated in the interview that he and Sweeney “would have had a debrief” after the residence review meeting.

Addressing the complaints of the construction work

commencing, Murphy said that the “official line the SU have received is that we should be encouraging students to get up at 7am.” Murphy later clarified that university management and UCD Estates had suggested this to the SU. This official line from university management goes against the inspector’s report from An Bord Pleanála, in which Sarah Moran inspected the sites on 15th November 2017 and 6th December 2017 and found that one of the conditions in her report to be: “Site development and building works shall be carried out only between the hours of 0800 to 1900 Mondays to Fridays inclusive, between 0800 to 1400 hours on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays and public holidays. Deviation from these times will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances where prior written approval has been received from the planning authority.”

The report was signed on 12th January 2018.

A student approached The University Observer after an article was published on the Town Meeting, alleging that comments made by Murphy in relation to the Union not being consulted over the 25% discount awarded to certain residents were false. When these accusations were brought to the attention of the Union, Murphy clarified two sabbatical officers had seats on the residential review committee that discussed the proposed discount to students affected by the construction. “There was the initial planned discount of 25% that our outgoing Education Officer and our current Graduate Officer had a role in part of the discussion around that...The group as a whole, with the disagreement of the outgoing Education Officer and the current Graduate Officer, came down to the figure of 25% in discount.”

In an email seen by The University Observer addressed to the executive committee members of the Union on the 14th March 2018, former Education Officer Robert Sweeney states “it looks like Residence facing outwards on the site will be given a discount of approx 25%, this has yet to be confirmed by UMT [University Management Team].”

This, Murphy explains, is separate to the 25% “reimbursement” that certain students in residences received since the start of the academic year, over which the Union were not consulted. According to Murphy “the

Chair of Res Review and UCD Estates went and made a decision as to who got a reimbursement and what that reimbursement was without consultation with UCDSU.” Referencing their previous discussions concerning the initial planned discount 25%, Murphy said “UCD management have through error, and I don’t think they’re thinking it out either, when students do query at the resident’s desk or through sending emails to UCD residences as to ‘why am I not receiving a reimbursement and my neighbour is?’ The current response up until a few days ago is ‘the reimbursement was discussed at res review and you have Student Union representation, student advisor representation and a number of other individuals,’ when none of those individuals had a role in the reimbursement they only had a role in deciding the original discount.”

When asked why he didn’t make the distinction between the initial discount and the reimbursement, Murphy replied “I thought I did. In any of the conversations with the students I went door to door with, gathering info about what their concerns were, we were informing them that these students have received a reimbursement. In all that communication there, I would have been really strong in using the word “reimbursement”. At the Town

Hall meeting, I presented the same argument that we had not been involved in the reimbursement and made an effort to distinguish that to the discount. So if there was confusion around that, I apologise, but I don’t think there was. I made it very clear that there was a discount and a reimbursement.”

To be granted a reimbursement of 25% on their residential fees, Murphy said he was asked to provide proof at the UCD residences review committee and “presented towards the end of September, 12 testimonials in total towards university management, from students who would have complained about the noise disturbance in UCD residences.” Murphy noted that “two weeks later, I received second-hand through a student that they had received a reimbursement and they thanked us for putting forward their testimonial”. The testimonials submitted to the residences review committee by students were anonymous and Murphy reported that “about half of them were reimbursed.”

The University Observer reached out to Estate Services and UCD Residences for a right of reply over the comments made by Murphy, though they had not replied at the time the paper went to print.

Concerns over wealthy students ‘tactically failing’ modules under new repeat system First published minutes in over a year show UCDSU will refuse referendum on new student centre until “hard commitments are made”

Brían Donnelly EDITOR Students repeating modules may face a 0.6 GPA reduction to the grade earned in the repeat exam under a new system being considered by UCD. Minutes from a meeting of the UCD Students’ Union Executive indicate that the current repeat system, under which a repeating student’s grade is capped at a D-(R), which carries a GPA of 2.0, is likely to be replaced.

The report of Education Officer Stephen Crosby to the Executive shows concerns have been raised over “more wealthy students” abusing the new system by “tactically failing” modules and repeating for better grades. The minutes, released on 16th November for a meeting held 1st October, state that the data for those repeating will be reviewed after 3 academic sessions “to check that the process has not changed student behaviour with regard to failing”.

The minutes show that UCDSU are in favour of a system which sees grade reductions rather than capping and will “welcome the review”, although they do not believe abuse of the new system is likely.

The Executive and Council minutes, published via the Union’s Facebook page, are the first official minutes published in over a year. Although the Union’s Constitution requires minutes to be published no later than one month

after an Exec or Council meeting, minutes for Council meetings have gone unpublished since February 2017.

The last minutes of the Executive were published on 24th October 2017, when a number of sabbatical officers appealed a decision of the Union’s Returning Officer to deny them annual leave to campaign for the impeachment of then-UCDSU President Katie Ascough.

The minutes also show UCDSU will refuse to hold a referendum on the introduction of a new levy to fund the expansion of the student centre on Belfield campus until “hard commitments are made”. UCDSU President Barry Murphy warns against backing the expansion as promises made to the student body in the past in relation to limited gym hours for students, pool access and counselling and health services “had not been delivered.” Murphy also raised the issue of student representation, stating that it is not diverse enough and pointing to the fact that there was only one woman on the consultation panel for the new student centre.

In her report to the Union Executive, Welfare Officer Melissa Plunkett raised the supply of condoms to UCD Residences. Although Dean of Students, Prof Jason Last “appears to agree” that condoms should be supplied on student residences, “no responses are forthcoming from Res leadership”. Council minutes of 22nd October indicate that they will be available in Welcome Packs from Semester 2.

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NEWS

Campus news in brief Dylan O’Neill

UCD Students top DCU in National Moot Court Competition Students from UCD’s Sutherland School of Law beat DCU to come first in the National Moot Court Competition held on 12th November. UCD was represented by Mark O’Brien O’Reilly and Mark Gilmore who, respectively, study Law with History and Law. The finals were judged by Supreme Court Judge Elizabeth Dunne, High Court Judge Tony O’Connor and Christine Simpson, an associate solicitor from Matheson, a law firm sponsoring the competition.

The Moot Court Competitions have teams of law students engage in a mock trial, and are fiercely contested every year by the top law students in the country. The finals centred around the tort of passing off, which centres around trademark law.

Irish Government to fund women-only university positions

Andrea Andres: The Irish government is to

finance 45 women-only professorial positions over the next three years, to tackle gender inequality in Irish universities.

The first 15 positions will be in place by September 2019 and by 2021 all 45 positions will be implemented. It will cost the Government €4.7 million annually.

Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor recently published Accelerating Gender Equality in Irish Higher Education Institutions, an action plan to address the slow progress being made towards gender equality.

According the report, there were only 24% female professors in 2017 despite women making up half of the sector workforce. There has never been a female president in the university sector, while in the institute of technology sector, only 2 out of the 14 presidents were female. The rate of progress in relation to the representation of women in senior academic roles has been only 1-2% every year in the period 2013-2017.

O’Connor aims to have “40% of professors within our institutions to be female by 2024,” The report’s vision is that “by 2026, Ireland will be a world-leading country for

gender equality in higher education.” But the report states that if the change continues at the same pace, it could take 20 years to reach 40% of women becoming professors across seven universities. For institutes of technology it could take between seven to ten years to pass the target of 40% female professorship. Mitchell O’Connor said that “this is just one of the myriad of initiatives that will address and improve the paltry proportion of women in senior third-level positions.”

The report has recommended that “all HEI (Higher Education Institutions) shall set ambitious short, medium and long-term targets” of one, three, and five years and that a Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality should be established to provide “centralised support for HEIs”. It also advises that HEIs should “strive for gender balance in the final pool of candidates for all competitions.”

Funding for universities will also be linked to how well they are addressing gender inequality. Universities will be required to apply for an Institutional Bronze award by 2019 under the Athena Swan charter. But female-only professorships will be restricted to areas where women are underrepresented such as engineering and science and

where other initiatives have failed.

Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, who won a landmark Equality Tribunal case in 2014 after ruling that she was discriminated against based on her gender and should be promoted to senior lecturer, said that “gender-specific posts or quotas are a good idea,” but “on a temporary basis.”

The report also looks into the practices of universities abroad. The University of Melbourne advertised only women-only positions for their School of Mathematics and Statistics at lecturer, senior lecturer and associate professor level. The Max Plank Institute in Berlin launched the Lisa Meitner excellence programme for women-only tenure track positions. The University of Delft in the Netherlands offers women-only fellowships with a generous research funding at assistant, associate and full professor level.

However, the funding of women-only posts could face legal challenges that are “very likely” to occur. Irish law forbids discrimination on certain grounds like gender and women-only posts breaches this. According to Claire O’Driscoll from the law firm Flynn O’Driscoll, a solicitor who specialises in employment law, “they are allowed to have a bias towards female roles if there is specific policy there.” However, Minister Mitchell O’Connor is not concerned by any possible legal challenge and said that the action plan has undergone “rigorous assessment” to ensure that it complies to Irish and European Union laws.

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Department of Education (DoE) said that legal advice deems that these proposals are acceptable under Irish law.

A man in the Netherlands took a case to the country’s Institute for Human Rights, in which he claimed that women-only post infringed his right to equality. But the institute ruled against him, and said that this action was a positive measure.

The Irish Universities Association (IUA) welcomed the plan. All its seven members are “fully committed” to implement meaningful changes and “wholly supportive of the Taskforce recommendations.”

The University of Limerick also welcomes the report.

Its president, Dr. Des Fitzgerald, is “delighted” that the “Government has recognised that this important work needs to be resourced.” The University leads the way in gender equality in academia. 33% of its female professors are women, as well as its Chancellor and two Vice Presidents being women. UCD currently stands with 24% of its professors are women and its 30% of its Heads of Schools are women.

UCD scientists make breakthrough with diabetes pill Over the past ten years, the number of people suffering from diabetes has increased dramatically. Scientists who study it have pointed to unhealthy Western diets and lack of exercise as key causes of the rise of Type 2 diabetes.

The most common form of treatment for Type 2 diabetes is a stringent diet and exercise plan, usually followed later in life by the daily injection of insulin. However, breakthroughs are being made thanks to scientists led by Professor David Brayden in UCD’s Veterinary Hospital.

He and his team are working on making insulin tablets, to replace injections, and vastly improve people’s quality of life.

Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Professor Brayden said that patients would be much more inclined to take the medication orally, rather than through a needle, “we know

because inhaled insulin has been achieved, we know patients prefer other routes apart from injection.” He says that due to the “psychological leap” patients make when beginning daily insulin injections, this

can lead them to delaying their treatment. There are hopes that this problem will be avoided with the introduction of insulin in tablet form.

UCDSU make noise at consent march Members of the UCDSU Sabbatical team joined Ruth Coppinger TD in the city centre on Wednesday the 14th November, protesting remarks made by a defence barrister in a rape trial. According to the Irish Times, the barrister Elizabeth O’Connell suggested that the 17 year old’s choice of underwear held some bearing on what had happened to her. She told the jury “does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.” The jury went on to acquit the man.

The news of this has caused outrage, with Deputy Coppinger making headlines by bringing a pair of underwear into the Dáil. Marches took place in cities across the country, with many protestors laying underwear on courthouse steps and attaching them to signs. UCDSU President Barry Murphy and Welfare Officers Melissa Plunkett were pictured with Ms. Coppinger holding signs with underwear attached, and calling for “legal reform in rape trials.”

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Irish Postgraduate Conference warned of the threat populism poses to academia Gavin Tracey:

The Irish Postgraduate Research Conference, held in DCU, heard from speakers who warned against the power of populism, and the effects it can have on academia, and university autonomy.

Tom Boland, the former chief of the Higher Education Authority, spoke of the danger populism posed, especially to academics. He told them “you are well educated; some argue over-educated. Opinionated, maybe overopinionated. And they feel that you are overbearing. So you are a target.”

Since the 1960s, the share of seats won in European elections by populist parties has tripled, from around 4% to 12%, according to a report published by two leading US academics. In the past decade alone, the world has seen the resurgence of right-wing populism in nearly every part of the world, from Europe to the USA, the Philippines to Brazil. The two authors define populism as “resentment of existing authorities, whether big business, big banks, multinational corporations, media pundits, elected politicians and government officials, intellectual elites and scientific experts, and the arrogant and privileged rich.”

Populism has already proved dangerous to many in academia. The University Observer has already covered how the ultra-nationalist right wing government in Hungary has begun to exert control over what its universities may or may not teach, by cutting off funding for gender studies courses. The former rector of the Vienna University of Economics, Christoph Badelt has also spoken about the

danger posed to universities, and has been quoted as saying that higher education institutions must “steel themselves and join forces”, against “radical political changes marked by increasing populism and alarming trends towards sedition against groups of people or institutions”.

Dr Mathias Mösche of Hungary’s Central European University spoke at the Irish Postgraduate Research Conference on this issue, saying “you start with gender.

But the next element might be human rights? So then we don’t need accreditation courses for human rights? We don’t need these experts. So where does that stop?” The conference also heard from other academics, who decried the actions of the Hungarian government.

Other issues raised at the conference was how the public perception of academics and experts has shifted in recent years, epitomized by Michael Gove’s now infamous declaration that the “people in this country have had enough of experts.” Dr Mösche warned that it was this type of “delegitimization” that has led people to become so hostile of academics and experts. He is quoted as saying that “They say ‘we don’t need experts; businesses don’t need these experts. We don’t need these experts anymore; we don’t need accreditation for these fields” and warned that this was a slippery slope.

Gove and others have ridden this wave of antiacademic sentiment by claiming in a Times piece he wrote in 2016, that the very same experts who the public were being asked to trust foresaw the economic crash. This laying of blame for the 2008 financial crisis at the feet of

“experts” and others has long been a popular talking point for resurgent right wing populists, from Trump to Fargae.

Indeed, the latest group of “celebrity academics”, such as Jordan Peterson and Stephen Pinker, have fuelled claims that academics and universities are not as great as they once were.

The numbers seem to back this up. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, a comprehensive study that examines the level of public trust in institutions such as NGO’s and government has found that levels of trust among the public has been declining year on year. In the USA the figures are stark, with a Gallup poll reporting that only 12% of Republicans have a good deal of confidence in universities, with Democrats on 37% and Independants at 22%.

In Ireland too, the level of public trust in higher education has had an impact. Former head of the Higher Education Authority Graham Love said that universities must earn the trust of the public if they wish for larger amounts of funding. The reputation of higher education in Ireland has been shaken in recent year, after a string of scandals, such as the UL whistleblower case. While no major party has capitalised on these low levels of public trust, such a scenario can not be ruled out. Irish universities have recently launched a joint campaign aimed at improving the standards of third level education. This comes after a decade of underfunding, and the consistent falling of Irish universities in the world rankings.

NEWS

Underfunding in higher education leaves Ireland unequipped to deal with National news in brief Brexit

Gavin Tracey:

Many Irish commentators have stated that some Irish businesses and institutions will benefit from Brexit, in the form of multinationals relocating here.The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom have long historical ties in nearly every regard, whether they be social, political or economic. The nature of how these relationships will change and morph in a post-Brexit landscape has been fiercely debated. However, one area in which Brexit will almost certainly be detrimental to Ireland is that of higher education.

Both before and during EU membership, Ireland and the UK have been incredibly close when it gets to the university level. Under the EU’s largest funding programme for higher education, Horizon 2020, Ireland and the UK share over 900 collaborative links, more than Ireland has with any other country. Thousands of Irish students study in UK universities, and vice versa. However, Brexit threatens to seriously undermine this long standing symbiotic relationship.

Irish universities are already feeling the effects of Brexit. Recently, Trinity College Dublin printed an open letter in the Financial Times, in which it outlined how Brexit has already had a detrimental impact upon them.

According to the letter, they have seen 20% decline in applications from Northern Irish students. TCD called for prudence and careful thought, and it highlighted how difficult it would be to maintain such strong links if the UK were to leave under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules - a so called “no deal Brexit”.

Dr. Rosarii Griffin, a researcher at the Office of the VicePresident for Teaching & Learning in UCC, told a group of researchers that Brexit would pose serious threats to Irish universities due to a lack of investment. She highlighted how Irish research status is falling in international rankings, which greatly influences who decided to study in Ireland, and what projects Ireland is granted.

According to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Ireland attracts more international students than the average, as

they make up 14% of all Master’s and 23% of Doctoral students. OECD figures also note that “expenditure per student from primary to tertiary education is slightly lower in Ireland than the OECD average, and has fallen between 2008 and 2013 as student numbers have increased.” The figures show that the government has not invested enough in higher education to reap any sort of benefits that may have come from the UK leaving the EU. The Irish Federation of University Teachers reported that “UCC’s core budget dropped from €90m to just €30m during a five year period, despite a report highlighting that every euro invested in UCC yields over €5 return on investment.”

Social Democrat TD for Kildare North, Catherine Murphy raised the issue of lack of investment in the Dáil earlier this month, asking the Minister for Education Joe McHugh if “his attention has been drawn to a national campaign co-ordinated across seven universities regarding a shortfall in funding the steps he is taking to remedy this situation?” In his response, McHugh said that in Budget 2019 the Government had provided “ €57 million in additional current funding for the higher education sector. This is in addition to separate funding that has been provided for pay deals and pensions, amounting to an additional €41 million in 2019.”

While many in the higher education sector welcome the additional funding, many believe that it is too little and too late to mitigate against the detrimental effects of Brexit. Speaking on the relationship between Irish and UK universities, Oxford University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise, a TCD graduate from Waterford, said “I do think we are all in trouble.” She added that Ireland needed to deal with the underfunding issue if it is to flourish postBrexit.

Plans have been in the works to ensure that Ireland and the UK can maintain the reciprocal relationship they currently enjoy. The Irish Universities Association has said that it has been encouraged by the efforts made by the UK Minister for Universities to ensure that Irish students will be able to complete their degrees in the UK after Brexit.

Looking at the bigger picture of research opportunities and the fate of students applying to study in the UK after the March 2019 withdrawal, as well as the chaos surrounding the Brexit deal, the future of the Irish-British relationship looks more uncertain than they have been for decades, not least for our universities.

DCU leads EU project to tackle online disinformation Gavin Tracey: Dublin City University is to

lead a €2.4 million EU project called Provenance, funded by the Horizon 2020 project, with the aim of fighting deliberately false and misleading news stories shared online. DCU’s Institute for Future Media and Journalism, led by Dr. Jane Suiter, will head the three year project, which will track and flag false and misleading content online, focussing in particular on social media. The team also includes academics and industry insiders from Austria, Spain, and the Czech Republic.

The focus of the project is on the widespread amount of false content masquerading as news, the negative effects of which have been widely reported on over the past few years. ‘Disinformation’ is the term used by those who study it, in a European Commission report published in March of this year, the authors wrote “this term [fake news] has been appropriated and used misleadingly by powerful actors to dismiss coverage that is simply found disagreeable.”

The impact that such disinformation has had on politics in the past decade is tremendous, from the US election to Brexit, its widespread prevalence has been an issue for governments and tech giants alike. Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg was brought before the US Senate to testify on his platform’s ability to protect its user’s data, and also to answer questions relating to Facebook’s inability to prevent disinformation spreading rapidly, reaching more

people than real news did in some cases.

Research carried out by the European Commission found that 80% of Europeans had come across information they found to be false or misleading, as well as 85% of Europeans who believe that the issue was of particular relevance to their country. Dr. Suiter warned of the dangers posed by disinformation too, saying “the speed and volume of disinformation on social media has the potential to undermine democracy, business, and social reputations.”

The Provenance team will employ the use of a “verification layer”, which will use a range of multimedia technology such as image forensics to record the type of content as well as any modifications made to it, allowing the team to track similar types of online content. It will indicate who has uploaded the content and when they did so, and if any changes have been made to it, as well as contextualising the information.

Speaking about the project, DCU President Professor Brian MacCraith said “ensuring the integrity and reliability of news from various sources is a critical issue for citizens across the globe at this time and is one that gets to the very heart of democracy.” DCU have said that the project will be particularly useful to those who read news and political information online. The project with also be useful to online content creators who do not wish for their content remains free from manipulation.

However, while measures such as these will be helpful in combating the spread of disinformation, it will only have a relatively limited effect, and as an EC report earlier in the year found that “various forms of disinformation, and the threats they pose to society, are deeply intertwined with the fast development of digital media, while the tactics and techniques used to amplify its spread online will continue to evolve.” There are also tensions between genuine freedom of expression and the purposeful spreading of disinformation, a fine line that any detector of false news will have trouble determining.

The report goes on to suggest that any approach to tackling disinformation must rest upon five pillars, and strive to “enhance transparency of the digital information ecosystem”, “promote and sharpen the use of media and information literacy “, “develop tools for empowering users and journalists and foster a positive engagement with fast-evolving information technologies”, “safeguard the diversity and sustainability of the European news media ecosystem” and “calibrate the effectiveness of the responses through continuous research on the impact of disinformation in Europe.”

Ultimately, any system capable of dealing with the rapid and ever changing nature of online disinformation will have to be a large scale, international effort, the effort led by DCU presumably being only the first of many.

Gavin Tracey

TCD the only Irish university ranked in employability rankings Trinity College Dublin has been ranked number 120 in the Times Higher Education supplement’s Emerging Global University Employability Ranking, the only Irish university to make it into the top 150. The Times Higher Education website explains how the rankings are achieved; “The survey ranks universities based on the perceptions of both national and international companies about the employability of their graduates.” No other Irish university has been ranked in the top 150. Laurent Du Pasquier, a partner with the human resources team that helped compile the list told the Irish Independent “when you consider how many institutions Ireland has, that is not a bad performance at all.”

This is welcome news for Trinity, as most major Irish universities have been steadily falling in nearly all world rankings for the past few years.

Aramark under fire over direct provision links as UL and USI announce boycotts Aramark, the US food mega-company is in the news again, this time after they distributed leaflets to University of Limerick under the heading “THE FACTS”. The leaflets were in response to a planned boycott of campus shops and cafés that have their food supplied by Aramark, including Starbucks, Costa and Subway. Aramark has also faced boycotts in the past from Trinity and UCD students, due to their involvement in several direct provision centres across the country, over stories last year of their serving poor quality and unsuitable food to asylum seekers.

The UL boycott is a response to a story that gained national attention earlier in the year, when an Aramark employee refused to give a woman living in direct provision a slice of bread and milk for her sick child.

The Aramark flyer appeared last week in UL campus, in an attempt to ensure UL students of “THE FACTS”. In it, they claim that “direct provision is a government policy”, and that “Aramark has no say, influence or involvement in the establishment of the system or in the residency or asylum application process.” Those involved with the UL boycott plans have said that the leaflets may have had the opposite effect to what Aramark wanted, bringing the issue to the attention of students who before would not have been previously aware.

The UCD and TCD boycotts of last year had little lasting effect, but with Aramark in the news again, the movement appears to be building momentum again, with USI voting on the 17th November to boycott Aramark.

Simulated terrorist attack carried out in DCU A simulated terrorist attack was carried out in DCU last week, involving the Garda Armed Support Unit, Emergency Response Unit, and hostage negotiators, as well as fire and ambulance services. The scenario was a real time simulation, resulting in “civilian deaths”. All involved knew that there was an exercise taking place, but not the scale or specifics, so as to adequately test their responses.

Lasting around 50 minutes, the simulation drew from previous attacks on schools and universities, such as the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings. A car entered the campus, and three terrorists emerged, priming explosives, and wandering the campus shooting students. Gardaí arrived on the scene within 5 minutes, and within the hour all three “terrorists” had been killed by the Garda Armed Support Unit.

Although Ireland has not seen a large scale terrorist attack the likes France and Germany have seen in recent years, Gardaí are confident that they have the skills and training to deal were such a scenario to occur.

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NEWS UK and EU universities attempt to ensure research and international students remain after Brexit International News in Brief Gavin Tracey

Brazil’s far right president elect poses serious threat to education Brazil’s new far-right President-elect Jiar Bolsonaro made headlines the world over with his ultra-nationalistic, populist brand of politics. As a congressman and candidate, he is virulently anti-gay, and has made disparaging comments towards women and minorities, and has openly praised Brazil’s former military dictatorship. On top of all this, many academics in Brazil are fearful as to what his presidency will spell for the future of higher education in the country.

As a long serving congressman, he advocated for the slashing of the education budget. Brazil spent 1.3% of its GDP on science and technology research, more than any other country in the region. Like many current nationalists around the world, such as Órban in Hungary, and the ADF in Germany, Bolsonaro has decried what he perceives to be a leftist bias in higher education. Under the very same military dictatorship he has praised, thousands of left-wing academics were jailed, some of whom were tortured also.

His supporters and fellow party members have called for the reporting of teachers who speak out against Bolsonaro.

According to the Nation magazine, his supporters have introduced a bill aimed at severely limiting what teachers can and cannot say in the classroom. The bill would ban the terms “gender” and “sexual orientation”, as well as removing sexual education from the curriculum, replacing it with “moral and religious education.”

UK regulator refuses to help universities in financial trouble Michael Barber, head of the Office for Students, the regulatory authority for the higher education sector in England, has told universities that are struggling financially that he will refuse to bail them out. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he says that bailouts would not be good for either the taxpayer nor the students, and that universities must become much better at managing their own affairs.

His comments come after widespread rumours than many higher education institutions are struggling financially.

Misjudgements in the number of students taking a course can lead to huge financial problems, as well as a host of other factors. The University and College Union responded to Mr. Barber, and has told the press that it will be writing letters to MPs, asking if they would be happy if a university in their constituency closed. Matt Waddup, the Head of Campaigns and Policy, was reported as saying “the regulator and government should be supporting universities to excel, not washing their hands when things don’t go to plan, Michael Barber’s comments demonstrate just how out of touch those in charge of our universities really are.”

Saudi students in Canada face having their studies cut short It started as a tweet from Global Affairs Canada, the arm of the federal government in charge of diplomacy, directed towards Saudi Arabia, criticising their treatment of women’s rights activists. The Saudi government reacted swiftly, saying that the criticism was unacceptable, and gave the Canadian ambassador 24 hours to leave the country. As well as this, Saudi Arabia announced that any Saudi student studying in Canada had until the end of August to return home.

Many Saudi Arabian students are given grants from the government to study abroad, under the The King Abdullah Scholarship Program. At its peak, around 60,000 students were availing of these grants. This meant that the call to leave Canada resulted in hundreds of Saudi international students returning home. Many in Canada have criticised this move, saying that it is unfair to allow students to be caught up in diplomatic spats.

Students who remained have been attempting to transfer to other universities in the USA and other counties.

However, students who wish to stay in Canada must face the choice of either paying their own fees or applying for asylum, as some 20 students have done.

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Shivani Shukla:

The Government of Ireland is being taken to court by public interest group Climate Case Ireland over alleged inaction on matters addressing climate change. This case has been built by the national environmental activist group, Friends of the Irish Environment, in close collaboration with some PhD law scholars in UCD. They say are holding the Government accountable for complacency, stating that “the Irish Government’s climate policy is weak and unambitious.” Legal advice is being provided to the NGO by environmental and planning litigation firm, O’Connell and Clarke Solicitors.

With the carbon emissions from Ireland being projected to be on an upward trajectory, the National Mitigation Plan put forth by the Irish government in 2017 has been deemed by the Climate Case to be unconstitutional and a wasted attempt at appeasing the public. The Plan is being challenged on the grounds that it is in violation of Ireland’s Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (the Climate Act 2015) and falls short of meeting the effortsharing for the Paris Agreement. Clodagh Daly, a research assistant involved in the Case, stated that, “what we are asking is that the High Court quash the current (National) Mitigation Plan and send it back to the government to be remade in accordance with the law. The government retains policy-making autonomy and so we can’t advocate for any specific type of policy.”

Legal grounds taken by the case are manifold. One of the premises is human rights, challenging the Government by stating that climate change inaction is breaching people’s right to live, with rising instances of extreme weather conditions like storms and droughts during heat spells threatening human life and livelihood. Another basis on which the case is challenging the Government is the recognition of an unwritten right to environmental protection in the Irish Constitution. This right came to light in 2017, when the High Court recognised such a right to protect one’s environment in a case involving Friends of the Irish Environment which opposed the planning permission for a new runway at Dublin Airport. Even as the challenge was unsuccessful, the recognition of such a clause was a major achievement for those who may wish to petition against inaction or inadequate action for environmental concerns.

Climate Case Ireland has taken inspiration from several international cases that took their respective governments to court over inaction on climate change. Some of the major ones include Urgenda, a Dutch initiative, which won in the public hearing on October 9, 2018. In this particular case, the Dutch government accepted that the policies currently in place to mitigate climate change are unlawful and insufficient, and “the State should reduce emissions by at least 25% by end-2020”. A ground-breaking legal suit led by a group of teenagers in Colombia, called “Future Generations VS Colombia”, had the government consider intergenerational rights and preservation of the Amazonian ecosystem.

Climate Case Ireland has over 3,225 supporters and already has presence on national media. The hearing for the case is scheduled for 22-25th January, 2019. Support for the case is expected to grow as the court hearing comes nearer, with numerous events planned before the hearing before court in January and their active social media presence. Edwin Alblas, an Environmental Law & Regulation PhD researcher in UCD, is ardently inciting support for the case from students and citizens through academic talks and similar engagements. The UCD Students’ Union is also supporting the initiative and using their social media outlets to promote participation.

Clodagh Daly said, “we need to stand up and raise our voices against our government’s complacency”. She also commented that, “people are hungry for change”, as can be seen with the organisation of an Extinction Rebellion rally on the lines of the one that occured in London last month.

Individuals can sign the online petition and become coplaintiffs in the Climate Case Ireland.

With World Health Organisation’s estimation that about 250,000 additional people will die as a result of climate change each year from 2030 to 2050, and IPCC’s drastic report warning of dire consequences on human lives if no immediate substantial action is undertaken, Climate Case Ireland has gained attention due its timely appeal. The representatives of the Case are prepared for contingencies as the plan going forward is highly dependent on the outcome of the court hearing. Even as dates for the hearing are set, the team is prepared for a delay, if the court postpones it, as this is not uncommon for public litigation cases.

The desired changes that representatives of Climate Change Ireland hope to see are more effective policies and plans to address climate change on the part of the Irish Government and to generate momentum in climate change action in Ireland. Daly commented, “what we need is bold, transformative climate policies across all sectors of the economy.”

Besides the outcome of Climate Case Ireland, what also remains to be seen is the political will of Richard Bruton, the new Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, to affect climate change policy-making in Ireland.

COMMENT Disparity in NUI representation is a symptom of the lack of Seanad reform With UCD graduates being in the privileged position of being able to vote for senators, Nathan Young considers some of the less democratic aspects of Ireland’s upper house.

In both 2002 and 2015, major overhauls of the Seanad were proposed by All-Party Oireachtas Committees, and in 2013 a referendum to abolish the Seanad completely, was defeated by a tiny margin of three and a half percent.

Evidently, it is felt that the upper house needs some changes, or it may as well go the same way as the upper houses of so many other nations. After all, the Seanad holds virtually no real power, other than the ability to delay bills from the Dáil.

Designed with the UK’s House of Lords in mind, with several noticeable key differences, the Seanad also adopted many of the same problems. Firstly, it is largely undemocratic and can be easily dominated and controlled by the Taoiseach. Second, due to its inferior power when compared to the Dáil, it is ignored by most of the population most of the time, including by members of the lower house. The lack of a democratic nature in the Seanad is supposed to be because of the almost technocratic

“panels”, who supposedly represent areas of expertise in fields such as agriculture, industry, or labour. In reality, the 43 seats assigned to the panels are almost entirely filled with party politicians, elected by party politicians, for the purpose of partisan politics. Another 11 seats are assigned by the Taoiseach, which are also obviously largely filled to meet partisan interests. This leaves a megre six seats, those of the universities, to fulfill the role of discussing and debating bills outside the context of party politics and to function as a system of checks and balances on the Dáil.

Having an upper house not elected directly by the population, but not poisoned by hereditary peerages like the House of Lords, gives Leinster House a rare opportunity in government to establish a chamber where bills can be debated on their own merit by serious people whose motives are not part of some long term political strategy, and whose expertise and interests in aspects of public life are inarguable. The system as it currently exists misses this

opportunity, leading some to wonder why the people cannot directly elect their own senators. After all, those who elect the Seanad are among TDs and county councillors, who are directly elected by the people.

The breakdown of the six seats for university graduates leaves the situation even less democratic. Three seats go to the National University of Ireland, and three to Dublin University and its only college, Trinity. While there is historic precedence for these two universities to be constituencies, having been so since before the state, they are vastly different in size. Just counting registered voters, the NUI has more than 103,000 constituents, where as TCD has just over 53,000. Furthermore, graduates of DCU and UL are not represented at all, despite having an Irish university education. The same case could also be made for the many institutes of technology and third level institutions.

While having six seats chosen by university graduates

“Having an upper house not elected directly by the population but not poisoned by hereditary peerages like the House of Lords gives Leinster House a rare opportunity in government” may seem somewhat snobbish, leaving the less welleducated disenfranchised; those who support the university senators argue that among NUI and TCD elected senators are noteworthy figures in Irish life, such as Alice Mary Higgins, David Norris, and Michael D. Higgins. From the Seanad, these figures can be serious and critical in their debates on new laws. Society and the Dáil would do well to listen to their wise conclusions and recommendations before passing bills too hastily.

Here, however, an obvious objection arises. If these seats represent the wise and educated voices of the learned, then wannabe theocrats and demagogues should find it hard to infiltrate the Seanad. However, Senator Ronan Mullen, one of the three NUI senators and founder of the Human Dignity Alliance spent the period when much of the country was considering the moral and material implications of repealing the eighth amendment, making unhelpful and untrue claims about the late Savita Halappanavar and the existence of mental health. It’s hard here to see how the senators are adding more to public life. It’s also not the case that abolishing these seats would remove all these figures from public life. Many of the more noteworthy senators were already respected figures in academia, politics, and activism before their terms in office, after all.

Ultimately the difficulty is that, despite the promises of change following the 2013 referendum and the publishing of the Manning Report in 2015, little has actually been done to reform the house. It’s clearly not a lack of understanding of what the problems in the Dáil are, nor is the issue a problem of a lack of imagination in how to solve them. With more Oireachtas working groups and reports constantly being commissioned to discuss the proposals of the previous working groups and reports, the problem is just a plain lack of political will, and Seanad reform will remain a pipe dream until that changes.

The case of State v. Journalistic freedom With much attention paid to censorship and harassment of journalists in the rest of the world, David O’Sullivan examines how The Northern Border question will impact communities on both sides of the border.

Ireland is a nation that has its press dominated by two titanic corporations. Independent News and Media own the majority of the print journalism, while the broadcasting industry finds itself split largely between RTÉ and Communicorp. Denis O’Brien owns both the entirety of Communicorp and the largest share of any shareholder in Independent News and Media, at 29.9%. As a consequence of these near monopolies, press freedom in Ireland seems to suffer, as defamation lawsuits become commonplace.

Many in Ireland call for a review of the defamation laws. At the moment, defamation is the most pressing obstacle faced by journalists in Ireland. 80% of defamation suits are in fact brought against workers in the media.

While defamation in Ireland is not a criminal offence, civil damages have in the past run up costs of well over €1 million for the defendant. Certain smaller radio broadcasters or independent press companies could find themselves irreparably damaged financially should they end up on the wrong side of such a lawsuit. Self censorship of content likely to lead to legal action has become an unfortunate reality for small irish media publications. As a consequence of the constant vigilance required in order to avoid a defamation lawsuit, small media companies find their freedom of speech at risk. This has led to the cultivation of an environment in which press finds their freedom to distribute information in jeopardy.

Despite the work of pro bono groups such as RightToKnow.ie, Ireland’s press freedom has dropped from 14th place globally to 16th place according to ‘Reporters without Borders’. Brave journalism is becoming more and more vital in contemporary society with major global superpowers such as Turkey, Russia, and the United States adopting a strongarm attempt in their methods of suppressing journalism that does not agree with their public policy or political leaders. Two weeks ago Donald Trump, President of a nation that values its own status as “Land of the Free” and home of the First Amendment, denounced Jim Acosta, the Chief White House correspondent for CNN, as a ‘rude, terrible person’ for questioning him after he referred to a migrant caravan from Central America as an ‘invasion’ to the United States.

Twenty five journalists have been killed in Turkey since 1992, with 22 of those journalists having their cause of death documented as murder. 58 have been killed in Russia in the same time period. While Ireland is not nearly as dangerous, these statistics and examples are testament to the consequence of a lack of freedom in press journalism.

While journalists in Ireland do not face the same threats as journalists in countries such as Italy, Slovakia, Russia

or Turkey, it is not unheard of for a journalist to face grave bodily harm. In 1996, Veronica Guerin, an irish crime reporter, died at the hands of a Dublin drug cartel on the Naas dual carriageway. She began reporting on criminal activity with the Sunday Independent, using a background in accountancy to follow criminal proceeds back to their source. Tragically, her work was answered with violence by the cartel members she was investigating and on the 26th of June, 1996 she was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle.

Freedom of speech is such a vital part of a democratic state. Journalists, and members of the public, should have the right to express their opinions without fear of character assassination or legal consequence in order to educate public opinion and prevent a nation from descending into a country run by an oligarchy of media titans condemning any comments against them. According to Article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and to impart information and ideas, without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” Yet despite this, Denis O’Brien, himself an owner of much of Irish media, has initiated more than 21 proceedings in the high court since 2001, primarily against media organisations and government tribunal which accurately reported on his affairs.

Traditionally, defamation has been defined as “publication of a false statement which subjected a person to hatred, ridicule or contempt’” However, the Defamation Act of 2009 redefined it as “one which tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society”. The issue with the older definition is how it allows people of significant wealth to sue anyone who released a statement publicly that portrayed them in a negative light. Luckily, the new definition is more fair and allows members of the public to assess the nature of the statement and the validity in claiming it to be defaming.

Despite Ireland’s failings in sectors such as housing, unemployment and issues with immigration, we wish to remain a fundamentally decent nation in which someone living and working an honest life and job can be guaranteed safety and moderate prosperity. It is our duty as citizens to encourage press freedoms in order to cultivate an environment of easy information exchange and democracy.

We must continue to promote the freedom of press, and work to raise Ireland’s status in international freedom of press rankings.

Illustration: Freya Williams

21ST NOVEMBER 2018

5

COMMENT Can we expect UCD to take a stand - on anything?

In light of the CIA report on Prince bin Salman, Claudia Dalby asks if UCD management will take a stand on something that might hurt them financially, or stick to their profit margins.

Over the weekend, the CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The murdered journalist had been a sharp critic of the Saudi Arabian government, specifically on its domestic and international policy. His disappearance and murder has rightly shaken the world, media and political landscape.

US President Donald Trump has responded by calling the CIA conclusion “premature but possible”, but affirming that the US will keep trade ties with Saudi Arabia: “They give us a lot of jobs and a lot of business and economic development. They have been a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development.”

The Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 60 people are currently imprisoned for expressing views that go against the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin

Salman. Although in this year, the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia was lifted; women’s rights activists such as Loujain al-Hathloul, and siblings Raif and Samar Badawi, who were arrested for campaigning and driving despite the ban, are still behind bars.

On 4th November, DCU announced that after reports of Khashoggi’s murder were made public, it was starting to review its relationship with Saudi Arabian university Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) in Riyadh, one of the largest public women’s universities in the world. DCU signed an agreement with PNU in 2012 to deliver two undergraduate courses there: a Bachelor in Business Studies International Finance BSIF, and Bachelor of Marketing, Innovation and Technology.

The Journal.ie reported that secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Séamus Dooley, stated that it is

“unconscionable that a college which has a distinguished record – not just in journalism but also in politics and public affairs – would be involved in an ongoing basis at this stage.” He acknowledged that it “could be a potentially difficult decision to DCU on an economic level but on an ethical level it’s a no brainer.” However, DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke has drawn attention to the students in PNU and that decisions should be made “with their interest taken into account.”

UCD holds ties to Saudi Arabia. In 2013, NovaUCD produced an energy-efficient wastewater management

“Unlike DCU, UCD does not have students in Saudi Arabia and is involved with them on a profit and innovation quantity alone.” technology company called OxyMem Ltd, which is based in Athlone. Major oil producer Saudi Aramco, owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, became an investor of OxyMem in 2017. Saudi Aramco has both the world’s second-largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 270 billion barrels, and second-largest daily oil production. Its financial results are undisclosed. With this investment, Saudi Arabia aims to improve the kingdom’s water production and supply needs by reducing energy consumption and other costs at water treatment plants. The technology has the potential to bring wastewater treatment closer to energy neutrality by reducing energy consumption by up to 75%.

Unlike DCU’s courses which it provides to Saudi Arabia, investment in a limited company makes ties tougher to sever. However, unlike DCU, UCD does not have students in Saudi Arabia and is involved with them on a profit and innovation basis alone. They could distance themselves and potentially lose out economically. However, do we even have reason to expect that UCD would, if it could, take such a risk? UCD prides itself on being a global university - but the news of Irish government and companies questioning its ties with Saudi Arabia would also send a message to the global stage, of non-tolerance with human rights violators.

It is hard to earnestly believe that UCD management would find a place to be passionate about taking a position.

This year, UCD stood firmly in its decision to close the Common Room, a place of community and leisure for staff.

Understandably, the student body has not been up in arms about something which barely concerns them. But it does mean something to students that UCD management did

“Within the university there are doubtlessly countless arguments for and against this decision but the decision comes with the imperative that there should be a motive beyond profit that inspires the actions of a university.” not comply with the decision that would affect the wellbeing and working conditions of staff - particularly when the provided excuse of needing teaching space was more or less debunked. Ultimately, President Deeks stating the that closure of the common room will not be reversed shows where UCD’s priorities lie - in profit and global rankings, and not the genuine experience of those working and studying at the university. It tells us that our well-being is relevant only when it can be viewed in the profit margins of UCD’s annual turnover.

On Friday 16th November, USI voted to boycott catering company Aramark, which is the contracted food provider of three direct provision centres in Ireland, where it serves food so below par that residents have been sick and hospitalised from eating it. Aramark is one of the principle food providers on campus, despite there being a studentrun campaign to boycott the UCD restaurant, Subway and Chopped. As the campaign unfortunately coincided with the Repeal campaign, there was less momentum for the cause at the time. However, there is now space for it to pick up again. But why should it be down to students to initiate change when our university ignores the history and impact of these decisions in the first place?

DCU had no financial or even social imperative to review its links to Saudi Arabia - very few were holding them accountable. In the face of a human rights violation, it took to its own initiative and made a statement that it will be reviewing its position. Within the university there are doubtlessly countless arguments for and against this decision but the decision comes with the imperative that there should be a motive beyond profit that inspires the actions of a university. It would be nice to feel like we were in a university that stands on a principal level for something - and for staying far away from anything that Trump considers acceptable behaviour.

Standing on secular land: a glimpse into the future Dylan O’Neill chronicles the changes in the Irish Constitution that have created a chasm between the church and state and asks what it means for the future.

When Article 40.6.1.i was amended to remove the word “blasphemous” from the Irish Constitution, it was the most recent alteration that affected the Church’s involvement in state affairs. The fallout from such a referendum will have little to no effect on the day-to-day lives of Irish citizens, but was seen as more of a symbolic “loosening of the grip” the Catholic Church, as an institution, holds on Ireland.

This long road started in 1973, when Irish people voted on the 5th Amendment to the Constitution which removed the special recognition of the Catholic Church. Since then, we have collectively voted to legalise divorce, decriminalised homosexuality, allow couples to marry regardless of sex, and repealed the 8th Amendment, removing the “equal right to life of the mother and the unborn” and setting the groundwork for providing safe access to abortion services in Ireland. With each of these steps, Ireland increases the gap between the Church and the State, but what does the end goal of a “secular Ireland” look like?

Despite the progress made to secularise the country, Ireland’s constitution has been heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. When Bunreacht na hÉireann was first being drafted, Éamon de Valera sought the advice of many officials from the different departments. Among these advisors, was The Right Reverend John McQuaid, who provided significant input on religious, educational, family and social welfare issues.

Unsurprisingly, during the time of the marriage referendum in 2015, concerns were raised by groups such as the Iona Institute over how “difficult for a preference to be given to motherhood and fatherhood in certain laws should referendum pass”. The Iona Institute was founded to promote the place of marriage and religion in society, and vehemently debates about how children “deserve the love of their own mother and father whenever possible.”

Three years later and the first steps of a bill have begun to be drafted following years of advocacy group work to secure legal protection for same-sex couples to both declare parentage of a child. This is a clear example of policy being formed despite opposition from the Catholic Church.

A lot of the examples of how a secular Ireland would function identify the relationship between the teachings of the Catholic Church and the LGBTQ+ community as key differences to the Ireland of today. Given the historical treatment of LGBTQ+ people by the Church, it should come as little surprise, that the practise of conversion therapy has not yet been outlawed in Ireland. However, theJournal.ie reported in May of this year that a bill which aims to ban conversion therapies in Ireland has passed through its second stage in the Seanad. Ireland currently has only one service provider of conversion therapy, but pending approval of the bill, it will be illegal for any person to perform or offer to perform conversion therapy on a person. However, the very fact that this practise wasn’t outlawed in the first place goes to show how much faith was

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Constitution.

As the majority of people know (from the amount of times it has been discussed in Irish media), 90% of the school in Ireland are under the patronage of the Catholic Church. This means that not only does the Church have a say in what is taught to students in both primary and secondary level education, but they also influence the criteria needed for teachers seeking employment. In a recent article in the Irish Times, Barry O’Rourke writes “without the CRS [Certificate in Religious Studies], you could be discriminated against - perfectly legally - on the basis of your religion or lack thereof... We wanted jobs. We wanted to be teachers. We just had to be a certain type of teacher.”

Scotland recently became the first country to include LGBTI rights in the school curriculum, beginning the teaching of the history of movements associated with the community. This is something that is considered missing in the Irish education system, especially around the subject of sexual education on offer to students. Scotland proved that it is possible to achieve this and in time will give us an example of the how the curriculum will be received by students.

On the blood donation ban, in 2016, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) introduced a “waiting period” of one year, allowing MSM to donate after a 12 month period of abstinence from all sexual activity. While this may seem like progress, the many LGBTQ+ individuals have criticized the waiting period, with the National LGBT Federation believing that the restrictions are “unnecessary” and that “the ability to donate blood should be based on an individual’s health service status and safe sex practises, not gender or sexual orientation.” In a column in The Catholic Thing, senior fellow with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Matthew Hanley wrote “the whole endeavor should be about the needs of recipient, rather than boosting the ego of the donor, right? A blood drive is not the place to assert your view of ‘equality’ – or worse, to exercise your ‘rights.’”

Although this column was in response to complaints over a blood drive in Silicon Valley, the point still stands that the Catholic Church have resisted, what many see as a move towards equality.

A secular Ireland is not one that is completely devoid of all religions, as the right to practise your religious beliefs is protected in the Irish Constitution. A secular Ireland would restrict the influence that members of the Catholic Church have to within the running of the Catholic Church, remaining separate from their rights to vote as an Irish citizen. If individuals want to vote in a way that coincides with the teachings of the Catholic Church, that is their right, but the Catholic Church would not be granted any additional influence in how the country is run. Religious practice would be a matter of personal choice and would be prohibited from impeding on the lives of people who practise different religions or none.

COMMENT Head-to-Head

Should gross negligence be considered a criminal offense?

Illustration: Freya Williams

YES

NO

Dylan O’Neill

Nathan Young

When you think of ‘gross negligence’ what will no doubt come to mind is an image of a doctor telling a patient that there was an error in their diagnosis/treatment. This scenario was made all too real in light of the cervical check scandal that saw the tragic death of Emma Mhic Mhathuna and the eighteen other women who died, after they were given false smear test results by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

While some newspapers estimated that the total amount of compensation for the victims could reach €500 million, it was the HSE as a government body that paid out the compensation. No individual who withheld the truth of the false results from these women ever faced criminal charges. The law is there to protect a country’s citizens, so why should those who caused harm the most vulnerable, the sick, not face the same justice as those who commit crime?

It’s not just the sick that can be the victims of gross negligence. In 2017, The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) report found systems failures at Tusla, a government-funded child protection agency, from inadequate management oversight, to poor record-keeping and delays in responding to referrals of child sex abuse allegations. The families, and especially the children, under the care of Tusla were in a vulnerable position and the agency’s failure to act accordingly on these allegations put these children at greater risk of the abuse continuing. Although the Hiqa report found serious failures in implementing policies, recording important decisions and monitoring the effectiveness of steps to protect children, Tusla CEO Fred McBride only apologised for the agency’s “deficiencies”. No one in the direct duty of care of these children, was found to be guilty of any criminal wrongdoing over the mishandling of sexual abuse claims.

There must be a legal form of protection for these children, whereby breach of that trust is treated with the utmost severity, to emphasise the seriousness of the care that is entrusted onto these individuals.

Finally, RTE reported that last year there were nearly 700 complaints made to Hiqa about conditions faced by those in nursing homes. These complaints ranged from assaults to unfit living conditions. Even Hiqa noted a lack of legislation concerning the protection of nursing home residents. When complaints which were seen as to be potentially criminal in nature were lodged, Hiqa passed on the appropriate information to An Garda Siochana and the HSE’s National Safeguarding Office. Following the publishing if this article, a piece of legislation went before the Seanad which provided mandatory reporting in incidences of adults suffering abuse and established an adult safeguarding authority which would be required to respond with an investigation in cases of serious reports of abuse. This legislation is the first step in establishing an effective protective measure for elderly residents in nursing homes and setting a standard across services where the sick, elderly or underage maybe at risk. This could then be expanded to be the norm where clear laws are put in place and action is taken against those who abuse their position.

Like with most questions surrounding criminal justice, the first question to answer is what the purpose of the criminal justice system is. As far as it being an effective crime reduction tool, the best philosophies are for it to be a deterrent for prospective criminals, and as a reforming tool to help people reintegrate into civil society. Leaving aside the concept of Gross Negligence Manslaughter, gross negligence is clearly not best dealt with under either of these systems.

Picture the following: A doctor in their forties is found guilty of gross negligence. They lose their license to practise medicine, thereby losing their job. The hospital that employed them and perhaps they themselves end up hugely out of pocket for allowing this to happen. Given that this person must now find a new career so late in their life, what benefit could be gained by adding to this a criminal record or gaol time?

Currently, those who are found to be grossly negligent find themselves severly out of pocket and potentially losing their license to practice or ability work in their field. It is not an offence linked to endemic poverty or lack of education, as many violent crimes are. It’s not something where rehabilitation is needed.

The threat of a criminal conviction as a deterrent seems slightly more convincing as an argument. Knowing one could land in gaol for gross negligence could motivate some to be more diligent. However, when considering the threat of the situation outlined above with the loss of the livelihood made for themselves by the potentially negligent, anyone not afraid of that situation is not going to be convinced to act differently by fear of repercussions regardless.

The third reason for a criminal justice system many people believe in is punitive, that those who do wrong must suffer.

Here, of course it holds up that gross negligence is a wrong doing and if those who do wrong are to be punished, then the grossly negligent must be punished. Here though it must be remembered that punitive justice is incredibly ineffective at preventing crime, and is based on a wish for vengeance more so than an effort to help victims and reduce re-offence rates.

As a civil offence, the victims of gross negligence can seek monetary reparations from the professionals and institutions responsible, and while that may not undo the harm done, it’s a damn sight better for them than getting nothing but knowing some former doctor is now in gaol with a criminal record.

A final point on the concept of Gross Negligence Manslaughter being ignored in the arguments above, as it seems unfair to ignore the extreme cases. The laws surrounding situations where doctors, nurses, prison guards, or other professionals with a duty of care of some description let or leave those in their care to die surely constitutes the grossest of gross negligence. Except here the crime is manslaughter, which while it may have been caused by negligence, is a separate offence which is rightly dealt with under separate laws. Manslaughter would still be a crime if the people involved did not have a duty of care. Being terribly negligent at one’s job would not be a civil offence if there was no duty of care. The distinction here matters, and those guilty of Gross Negligence Manslaughter are guilty of a form of manslaughter, not gross negligence.

REBUTTAL

REBUTTAL

Implied in the first paragraph above is the assumption that what’s needed is retribution of some form. Of course, the €7.5 million settlement did nothing to save the life of Emma Mhic Mhathúna. Neither, of course, would a criminal punishment for the management of the cervical cancer screening programme. The case against punitive justice still stands. If our concern is that those who do what is morally wrong are met with punishment, then of course gross negligence should be made a crime. However, if our concern is about preventing gross negligence from occurring and to reduce harm, then perhaps criminal proceedings are not what’s needed. This is not to say that punishments as a deterrent shouldn’t be used, or that those who prove that they cannot be trusted with the kinds of responsibilities we’re discussing shouldn’t be stripped of their responsibilities.

As for the law mandating reporting for abuse of elders in retirement homes, the issue seems to be one of a contention over what gross negligence is. Abuse is clearly a crime in and of itself, and although having a duty of care over someone makes it much easier to commit said crime, it’s not defined by that, and those with no duty of care can still abuse.

Another issue is the lack of recognition that something can be in breach of the law without it being criminal. To say that a certain action need not be criminalised does not mean to say that it ought be accepted or ignored. In many of the cited cases above, either civil law has not been used to its fullest extent, or civil law currently lacks the scope to deal with these situations. In cases where the laws on the books prove inadequate, it is only right that the law be expanded to better protect people in the future. State and private sector employees in healthcare, child-care, and nursing homes who are grossly negligent, be it through caprice or incompetence, should be removed from their posts and prohibited from being able to do the same again. Victims should be able to seek and get compensation for the harm done to them. Prisons don’t need negligent doctors and nursing home administrators.

In the opening statement, my opponent said that the best philosophies for the criminal justice system as an effective crime reduction tool are to be a deterrent and to reform those within the system. That may seem like the ideal situation, however, this is far from the practical running of the justice system. In 2015, the Prison Recidivism Study found that the rate of re-offending for offenders released in 2009 was 47.5%. This clearly shows that more must be done to reform the prison system in terms of rehabilitation, and therefore the only philosophy that stands in the criminal justice system is that of it as a deterrent.

In my opponent’s opinion, this is not the best way to deal with gross negligence. From the example you gave, the question remains of whether or not you think a person should themselves bear more responsibility in cases of gross negligence. In the case of the HSE being sued over the CervicalCheck scandal, it was was the governing body that paid out, and while I’m sure several people lost their jobs over it, it was the HSE, as employers, that decided what measures were taken against the individuals they deemed responsible, not the State. This was not simple malpractice, but gross negligence.

If all cases of gross negligence resulted in the possibility of a criminal conviction, varying on the severity, this would be an effective tool at tackling the problem at a grassroots level. Individuals in positions which carry a duty of care would have to be conscious that a criminal record would be a greater detriment to them than losing a civil case in the long run.

On the point you made about the criminal justice system being seen as a “punitive” measure, it would be irresponsible to allow offenders to enter back into the field after they were found guilty of breaking the trust place upon them in their duty of care. The criminal justice system, while far from perfect, is there to protect the citizens against repeat offences made by an individual that would cause them harm.

Reforming the definition to categorise gross negligence as a criminal offense for those placed in a duty of care to the elderly, sick, or children would effectively provide a deterrent while removing those who abuse the trust placed in them.

The Gross Negligence Manslaughter charge being used as a guide to sentence those convicted accordingly.

Nathan Young

Dylan O’Neill

21ST NOVEMBER 2018

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FEATURES From the Armistice to the Berkeley tragedy: Commemorating the UCD community Brían Donnelly travels around the UCD campus and recounts the stories behind the commemorative plaques. active service from the UCD community.

Each person in the procession held a light and the name of a student or graduate of UCD who fought in the First World War. In Dr Mulvagh’s case, he held a card bearing the name of Denis Gwynn, a soldier in the Royal Munster Fusiliers who became a professor of Irish history at UCC, having been invalided home to Ireland in 1917.

“He wrote a book on John Redmond and his father, who was an MP at the time,” Mulvagh says, “and I’ve been reading both Stephen and Denis Gwynn’s work since I was an undergraduate.”

The commemoration of the 1918 Armistice is part of UCD’s Decade of Centenaries programme, highlighting the University’s role in the most significant events leading up to the foundation of the State. According to Dr Mulvagh, in commemoration of the Armistice, “we weren’t trying to interpret the meaning of why they served...the word sacrifice was not used, there was no question of sacrifice it was about remembrance”.

Remembered in the Rose Garden, is UCD’s first Professor of National Economics, Thomas Kettle, one of the 43 men who died in the War. A plaque in the Garden, unveiled in 2016, bears his poem, ‘To My Daughter Betty, A Gift of God’, which he wrote just 5 days before his death in an assault on the village of Ginchy on the Somme. Kettle is also commemorated by a bust in St Stephens Green which bears the final lines of the poem: On a gusty Friday morning, James Stone, a piper and student of Music & English in UCD, lead a solemn procession from the Masonic annex of Richview, across Belfield campus, to the University’s contemplative Rose Garden behind Belfield House. Speaking over the growing winds in the Rose Garden, UCD’s Dr Conor Mulvagh told the crowd of students and faculty of the young men that had come through the University, “to fill the ranks of the junior officer class whose role in leading their troops on the battlefield exposed them to some of the most acute dangers in the industrialised killing fields of the war.”

A minute’s silence in the garden commemorated the 43 members of the UCD community who lost their lives in the First World War. Two-thirds of them served in medical roles and, according to research by Dr Mulvagh, many are buried and commemorated “everywhere from Basra in Iraq, to Glasnevin here in Dublin, with the majority in France and Belgium”, emphasising the “global nature of the conflict”. An exhibition compiled by MA Public History students on “UCD and the Armistice, 1918 2018” is on display across campus throughout November.

It contains the names of those who were killed in action or

active service from the UCD community.

Each person in the procession held a light and the name of a student or graduate of UCD who fought in the First World War. In Dr Mulvagh’s case, he held a card bearing the name of Denis Gwynn, a soldier in the Royal Munster Fusiliers who became a professor of Irish history at UCC, having been invalided home to Ireland in 1917.

“He wrote a book on John Redmond and his father, who was an MP at the time,” Mulvagh says, “and I’ve been reading both Stephen and Denis Gwynn’s work since I was an undergraduate.”

The commemoration of the 1918 Armistice is part of UCD’s Decade of Centenaries programme, highlighting the University’s role in the most significant events leading up to the foundation of the State. According to Dr Mulvagh, in commemoration of the Armistice, “we weren’t trying to interpret the meaning of why they served...the word sacrifice was not used, there was no question of sacrifice it was about remembrance”.

Remembered in the Rose Garden, is UCD’s first Professor of National Economics, Thomas Kettle, one of the 43 men who died in the War. A plaque in the Garden,

Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,— But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor.

“The University’s contemplative space in the Rose Garden opened in September 2015, following the tragedy in Berkeley that summer.”

UCD’s campus has many more quiet commemorations to its community. The University’s contemplative space in the Rose Garden opened in September 2015, following the tragedy in Berkeley that summer. Two benches were installed, one in remembrance of the six students who died and seven seriously injured in the balcony collapse

“An exhibition compiled by MA Public History students on “UCD and the Armistice, 1918 - 2018” is on display across campus throughout November.” in Berkeley, and another commemorating all UCD students who died while attending the University.

In a humble spot adorned by trees and ferns, near the Engineering Building, lies a commemorative plaque and a tree planted in memory of Niall Cooney and Conor O’Keeffe, students of the Mechanical Engineering Class of 2001. O’Keeffe had been Captain of UCD’s Mountaineering Club and died following a fall in Glendalough in September 2000. In his memory, his family established the Conor O’Keeffe Fund, which supported subsidised professional training for members of the Club for years. During his time in UCD, Cooney had been a debater and a member of the Choral Society. The Niall Cooney Trophy for the winners of a debate which had been held annually on EngDay, was introduced in memory of him.

The memory of UCD student Julie Ryan is commemorated by a plaque on the N11 flyover outside the main entrance of UCD. She is remembered simply and affectionately with the words ‘Blithe Spirit’, in reference to the poem, To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

A plaque commemorating the poet and political activist, Charles Patrick Donnelly was unveiled in the Newman Building on the evening of the 71st anniversary of his death. The plaque bears the words: “Even the olives are bleeding...”, which he remarked in the lull of machine gun fire shortly before he was shot and killed. Donnelly, a graduate of Logic, History, English and the Irish language, had fought in the Spanish Civil War and died on 27th February 1937 in the Battle of Jarama, near Madrid. In April 2008, the UCD branch of Labour Youth was named after Charles Donnelly.

If you have been affected by this article, you can freephone Samaritans on 116 123 (text 087 260 9090 or email jo@ samaritans.org) or Pieta House on 1800 247 247, text HELP to 51444 (fees apply). Visit pleasetalk.org for more information.

The proof is in the policy: Tracking the student council mandates Dylan O’Neill digs through the UCDSU Policy Book to what your sabbatical officers are doing to carry out the student council’s policies.

The UCD Students’ Union is constitutionally obligated to the hold a Student Council every three weeks during term time. At the Councils, class representatives, college officers and members of the campaigns forum gather together to discuss motions that have been brought forward concerning the Union’s operation and how the sabbatical officers can improve the college experience for all UCD students. Motions that have been passed by a majority vote are documented in the UCDSU Policy Book which is available for all students, and is a way of tracking the progress made by the student council.

The UCDSU Constitution states that “policies and mandates set by the Union Council, shall lapse after 3 calendar years”, requiring the UCDSU Policy Book to be regularly updated. The most recently updated Policy Book includes the motions passed from the final council meeting of the academic year 2017/2018. This version of the book includes 67 policies, divided between policies that have an ‘ongoing’ or ‘yes’ status. UCDSU President, Barry Murphy explains that policies that are listed as “‘Ongoing’ means that work on the mandate is currently happening. In some cases this may involve discussing with our counterparts in other SUs about similar work they have ongoing or completed, discussing plans to implementing that work, continuously lobbying others to implement the work or working to engage students in the work required.

A mandate listed as ‘yes’ means that it has been completed ie. the letter has been sent or the campaign has achieved its goals. UCDSU Sabbatical Officers can and do revisit mandates as directed by Council.”

Certain policies fall under the responsibility of particular sabbatical officers to see the mandates carried out. In the role of Campaigns & Communications Officer (C&C), Thomas Monaghan is mandated “to post objective details on the Student’s Union’s social media platforms as to what discussions occur at council.” At the last student council, the topic of the UCDSU website maintenance was brought up in discussion, as the C&C Officer and President were mandated to update the website with the current college officers and campaign coordinators. Monaghan explained that “it is currently under maintenance and it will be updated once the issues are resolved” with Murphy adding that a staff member was being trained in script writing for the website. Since the end of the crossover period during the summer, Monaghan said that he takes “every opportunity to promote our social media platforms by speaking to large crowds at once during our events such as the crowd of 1,500 people at Pretty Little Thing Student Sample Sale or speaking to the 800 students who attended the Freshers’ Ball as well as when I address a lecture.”

Among some of the policies that concern the student experience is the Union’s responsibility to expand the supply of Halal options across campus. According to Monaghan, the Union has “been successful in promoting and including more diverse dietary options for students such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten and dairy free foods.

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At the moment, we are researching the ability to increase Halal options in UCD, however, the core difficulty we face is logistics in supply and getting large quantities of Halal options delivered.”

Often the sabbatical officers will prioritise certain policies in their manifestos, which they feel need the time and input to successfully see through. Welfare Officer, Melissa Plunkett said that she is prioritising providing condoms in the on-campus residences, but also “providing support information on bathroom doors” to services is another mandate she is working on. An example of this policy is the Niteline contact information on the bathroom doors beside the health services.

Every year, UCDSU is invited to attend the Pride parade by the LGBTQ+ society. They are also mandated to take a positive stance on, and actively campaign for the licensing of PrEP when they attend Dublin Pride Parade. Given that a monthly subscription to PrEP costs approximately €100 a month, Plunkett has said that she is “open to more events on this topic and I’m trying to educate myself on this matter” and has reached out to the LGBTQ+ society for their input on making the SU more visual in promoting PrEP. A recurring issue that practically every Education Officer includes on their manifesto is to lobby the University

to lower the fees around repeating exams. Council has passed a motion which mandates the Union to undertake actions and propose how the Departments of Education and Skills, Finance, and Public Expenditure and Reform and the Higher Education Authority would implement the “free fees” initiative. Crosby has said “while issues such as housing have dominated the social and political landscape in recent months, the lack of funding for higher education in Budget 2019 and the IUA’s #SaveOurSpark campaign has shown that publicly funded third level education and the reduction of costs to students should remain a core focus of the SU.” He added that he will prioritise working on promoting the campaign to raise awareness among students and the Irish public. He believes that the best way of promoting the campaign is “is the promotion of the IUA’s Change.org petition to the Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh, which asks that the Minister address the funding crisis in higher education; lobbying of local TDs, Senators and MEPs by students, SUs and all those interested in securing the future of higher education and sharing of these actions and of the campaign itself to whichever audience an individual has access to through social and traditional media.”

Crosby has said that through his work on the “Supports for Students Working Group, which is a collection of

representatives from all of these supports who aim to ensure that the various organisations in UCD can work together effectively” he is prioritising creating and distributing “two academic guides for first and final year students, which highlight to students the various supports available to them.”

The Graduate Officer, Niall Torris has worked on postgraduate fee certainty and postgraduate student supports by working with Aisling O’Grady, Head of Student Advisors, to introduce a “Graduate student advisor”.

Torris is reportedly “exchanging perspectives on what the role should look like and are attempting to align the role as much as possible with the needs of graduate students and QQI Guidelines for Research Degree programmes.”

Torris is focusing on collaboration in his aims of improving engagement on the Blackrock campus by “organising events in conjunction with the Business Student Adviser Nadia Clarkin such as the recent movie night held in the Smurfit Lounge. I am currently discussing with Nadia further plans for events on campus in Smurfit.” He also prioritises the work on improving conditions for PhD students by “continuing to raise the issue of the value of scholarships on and graduate school boards, particularly where the introduction of “fees only” scholarships in exchange for teaching assistant hours is suggests/introduced.”

FEATURES The Strategic Campus Development Plan: time for a check-Up? Two years into the Strategic Campus Development Plan is it time to reevaluate where UCD is going? Doireann de Courcy Mac Donnell thinks it is definitely time for the student voice to be heard.

The Strategic Campus Development Plan lays out the vision for the development of University College Dublin over the ten years from 2016 to 2026. With “a set of guidelines documenting their intentions” for each, the Development plan includes a Campus Development Plan, a Sustainable Campus Plan, a UCD Travel Plan and a Residential Masterplan. However these strategies are being designed and implemented without a strong input from the student body.

As a result, a group of Planning & Environmental Policy students have decided to organise the documentation of the “UCD Students’ Strategic Vision”, with the support of the Students’ Union and UCD Estate Services. This is designed to run alongside the Strategic Campus Development Plan and to be used by the University when making future decisions about the evolution of the campus. The UCD Students’ Strategic Vision would be a manifestation of extensive research into students’ opinions on campus development. This will involve an online and on-campus survey, written and email submissions and information sessions, as well as a Panel Discussion. For the Strategic Vision to be an accurate representation of the collegian view, the group used a process similar to creating a Local Area Plan, as would be done in a County Council. With the Students’ Union effectively acting as the County Council of UCD, the Final Vision will be brought before the SU Council to be approved. In addition, Roy Harford of the UCD Students’ Strategic Vision group outlined the benefit of having such a document when campaigning for student services: “the intention is that this document could then be used by the University to incorporate students views into their own plans, and could … be used by the SU as a basis for future campaigns on campus related issues.”

As part of the UCD Students’ Strategic Vision initiative and Planning Week, a Panel Discussion on the Future Development of the UCD Campus was held on Thursday 8th November. Hosted in the Richview Campus, a panel of guests were invited to comment on the Strategic Campus Development Plan and how it should evolve. The discussion was broken down by topic; Vision for UCD, Surrounding Area and Local Community, Student Accommodation, Environmental Impact and Transport links, with each guest focusing on different aspects. Chaired by Joe Carr, the President of the Irish Planning Institute, a series of questions were posed to Louise McGauran, Senior Planner with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Barry Murphy, President of the UCD Students’ Union and Tom Phillips, Managing Director of the Planning Consultants Tom Phillips + Associates.

With a population of nearly 30,000 staff and students, University College Dublin has come to be a town within itself and it continues to grow rapidly. The Strategic Campus Development Plan explains the vision of UCD in the coming years and how this will physically manifest. As a planner, Louise McGauran saw the importance of looking to other universities to learn how best to develop the campus within its surroundings. Traditionally, a university campus would have been primarily inward looking. This model is evident in UCD with the centre of the campus focused around the lake, however post-war ideas have shifted towards the university becoming more integrated

with the adjacent community, such as in the University of Chicago.

Tom Phillips also noted that 55% of the population of UCD use the N11 entrance as their primary gateway into the college. This entrance is on its own bridge and slip road. This means that the entrance is only used very deliberately and discourages any casual passer-by. Laid out in the Strategic, Coherent and Integrated Location of Activities section of the Development Plan, the college continues to locate car parks around the periphery, leaving the centralised zone for pedestrians. This serves to further the inward-looking lay out of UCD, the areas connecting the campus and surrounding communities never truly inhabited. Is this model of UCD as an isolated entity preferable to the alternative, where the campus of UCD is truly part of Dublin suburbia, and blends into its surrounding communities or should the Students’ Strategic Vision initiative be used to alter this trajectory?

Having already spent four years on campus already, UCDSU President Barry Murphy put forward a comprehensive view of the additional facilities that are needed in UCD. As the manner in which we learn evolves, so too must the spaces in which this learning takes place.

The introduction of learning hubs, small rooms and tutorial spaces are essential to back-up the large lectures.

According to Murphy, the “biggest deficit” in services is the number of library spaces available. Currently there are only approximately 13,000 library seats. This is of major concern as there is no strategy to develop library space in the masterplan. In contrast, University of Limerick has recently opened the state of the art Glucksman Library, which not only caters for every student in UL but also provides a socket for each space. Here in UCD the trend of library usage would see the libraries filled to capacity generally from week nine or ten in the semester, however Murphy claimed that the libraries around campus have been filling up from around week six and seven, showing that this overcrowding is getting worse year on year. This problem emphasises the importance of the Students’ Strategic Vision initiative, enabling students to highlight over-sights within the masterplan.

A major focus of the Panel Discussion was the development of student accommodation. The Masterplan for Accommodation states that “the provision of additional quality student residences on the campus is a significant ambition of the University”. In short, it outlines the provision of 3,006 new bed spaces. The development is expected to span ten years and will culminate in seven apartment blocks, ranging in height from five to ten storeys.

It is proposed that these blocks will follow the format of the existing student accommodation and be arranged into squares to facilitate a “continuous pedestrian route to ensure integration between the proposed villages and to facilitate linkages between the proposed accommodation and the existing student accommodation”. A student facility centre, the Fulcrum Building, will be built to house a function hall, gym, health and wellbeing centre and other shops and services (such as a bank).

An issue in the Masterplan that was raised was the proposal that each bedroom would have its own en suite. This is a concern as it hugely increases the cost of

building this accommodation and therefore the cost to the prospective resident. Barry Murphy argued that although an individual bathroom is not necessary. It also means that twice the number of facilities are needed compared to a shared bathroom set-up as in Belgrove: 3,006 new showers and toilets and sinks. The en suite room is modelled off the European style of accommodation and is designed to attract international students. This is primarily to makeup for a deficit in government funding, the huge fees of the international students used to subsidise the Irish students.

“Banks won’t fund philanthropy” Tom Phillips said, highlighting the need for accommodation to be expensive just to pay for itself. Another potential negative product of having an ensuite in each room is the isolating effect it can have. The sheer size of the population in UCD can make it difficult for people to make friends. When he surveyed students living the current student accommodation, Murphy found that many student living in Roebuck Castle found their living quarters to be quite solitary. There are

bring about change. On of the more troubling revelations of the Panel Discussion was that even though some bins are regardless. This is startling when you consider the amount of waste generated by a population of 35,000, most of whom have been segregating waste since primary school.

Some positive moves have already been made towards a green campus such as compostable coffee cups and the promotion of green transport methods, however there is a lot of small changes that can be made that would have a major impact in a space the size of UCD. It is important that we look after the campus that the research is happening is, as well as doing the research.

Details of the Strategic Campus Development Plan can be found online at www.ucd.ie/campusdevelopment. All the literature discussing the strategies for accommodation, transport and the masterplan are accessible and easy to read and give an insight into the direction in which UCD is going. The ten year cycle of development we find ourselves in is a critical stage and it has never been more important

twelve rooms to each flat, each with their own bathroom.

The residents have no reason to leave their rooms once they come home, only to eat in the catered restaurant. It is possible that the new accommodation could become a bit of a ghost town too if the social side of living in a student residence isn’t considered.

As an experienced planner, Louise McGauran discussed the effect new student accommodation could have on the wider community. Although more housing would be provided within the UCD campus for students it is unlikely that more housing spaces would become available up on the open market. This is because of the number of students that are forced to commute as a result of the housing crisis in Dublin. As spaces become available they would be taken by the commuting students.

The college experience differs greatly for students commuting. Tom Phillips, an alumnus of UCD himself, commuted in and out to college everyday and felt he missed out on the full college experience. For every five student beds created within accommodation a house becomes free on the open market. Whether that house is used to tackle the homeless crisis, student housing crisis or the difficulty faced by young professionals trying to find houses, the building of more student accommodation has positive effects on the entire environs of UCD. As part of Panel Discussion on the Future Development of the UCD Campus the topic of ‘Environmental Impact’ was discussed. Louise McGauran outlined the importance of open spaces in conjunction with the built development. In her work, the importance of the climate change agenda is influencing more and more projects.

Tom Phillips pointed to the obvious inefficiency of the lack of waste segregation in the university. Although UCD is leading the way with regards to research into the changing environment, this interest is not represented by the manner in which the University functions. Funds are being pumped into academia as opposed to facilities to

for students to voice their opinions and to have an initiative such as UCD Students’ Strategic Vision. The group have set up an online survey which questions all aspects of life in

“when we come back in ten years time [UCD] will be completely different… because [UCD] is developing at such a fast pace, at every stage we should be mindful and careful of what we are actually building”. the college; from the internal navigation to nightlife to the provision of accommodation. By participating in this survey and upcoming events discussing the evolution of UCD, the student can have a positive impact on the university for the future collegians. As Murphy put it “when we come back in ten years time (UCD) will be completely different… because (UCD) is developing at such a fast pace, at every stage we should be mindful and careful of what we are actually building”.

Have your say in the Future of the UCD Campus, and contribute YOUR views and ideas to the UCD Students’ Strategic Vision! Just fill out this short online survey, and be in with a chance to win a €100 One4all gift voucher! http:// www.ucdvision.ie/survey

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FEATURES Interfaith workshops in UCD creating unity in diversity With religion playing a divisive role in many conflicts around the world, Nathan Young examines a bridge-building Interfaith initiative in UCD UCD Interfaith is an initiative of the UCD Chaplaincy started by Fr. Leon Ó Giolláin, one of UCD’s three full time chaplains, about 7 years ago. Speaking to The University Observer, Fr. Leon explained “I personally started it because during International Week, I noticed there was nothing around faith for and I thought that was very strange...it’s so integral to [many students’] culture and I thought that should be noted, that should be marked, and that should be celebrated.” The idea is a simple one: that students of any faith, or, as Fr Leon was keen to note, of no faith, could meet to express their beliefs for the others to hear.

About twice a semester, usually on a Thursday afternoon, the St. Stephen’s Chaplaincy, nestled between the Sutherland building and the Confucius Institute, opens its doors for the interfaith gathering. Participants sit in a circle, each being given the chance to volunteer the beliefs of their faith on the pre-chosen subject. Past topics have included prayer, hope, and fear. Then participants are given a chance to respond to each other. Finally, tea and food is shared, and participants can share their thoughts in a less formal chat with each other.

On the subject of the purpose of the interfaith, one participant told The University Observer “the main concept being that ignorance breeds prejudice, and prejudice breeds hatred, the point of Interfaith is to dispel hatred by dispelling the root cause, which is ignorance”, which echos Fr. Leon’s assertion that “this is modelled on pluralism, on unity and diversity. It models that. And not only does it model that but it promotes it.” Whether the people who participate in Interfaith are then the ones who needed to benefit from such a project, the participant told us that there can be a knock on effect. “Maybe I’ll go away and have a conversation with someone who is very sectarian and I’ll say ‘you know, I don’t think what you’re saying is correct because I was at interfaith and I heard XYZ.’” From this description it may seem like the Interfaith is UCD’s modern day Areopagus, where the enlightened can come to debate and those who wish to spread their own gospel can preach, but this is not so. Fr. Leon puts down the absence of conflict to good and fair-minded management of the discussion. “We set the parameters very clearly in the beginning and the rules of the interaction which is we share very simply a personal conviction. You can’t argue with that, you just accept that.” When questioned if the more sectarian minded have ever tried to dominate the conversation, Fr. Leon explains how he has dealt with that situation before: “there have been external groups that come in uninvited, but we quickly showed them the door... there was a group that came in from outside and their purpose was to impose the Christian message on the people there...I said you’re very welcome to be here under these conditions. They came, but then after we had a session they started regressive stuff, and I asked them to leave...we don’t allow any aggressive proselytising or anything, that’s just not what we’re about.”

The efficacy of the Interfaith as a way of combating prejudice then relies on having the greatest number of faith communities represented. Recognising this problem, Fr. Leon constantly approaches people he recognises

as religious on campus to invite them to attend “in the beginning, I went around looking for students of different faiths. One time in the student coffee shop I saw a sikh, you know he was wearing a turban so it was very obvious and I approached him and I told him about this...and he immediately responded positively and he used to come along and he shared very well because he understood his faith as a Sikh.” Despite Fr. Leon’s best efforts to find a pluralist cast of attendees, some participants feel that there is something of a lack of diversity. One told The University Observer that there were Catholics, Baha’is, and the occasional Protestant, Muslim, or atheist. As the Interfaith is a chaplaincy initiative, the participation of religious student societies can be temperamental, with each year’s

“If you’re looking at beautiful stained glass windows from the outside you see something very dull and dark, but if you’re inside you see it’s splendor, and you sense it and you taste it and you rejoice in it, that’s what it’s like from the inside” new committee deciding if this kind of event is something they wish to promote.

The biggest issue for the Interfaith, however, is one that is true of the chaplaincy as a whole. Organised religion is less popular than ever, with just 15% attending some form of weekly religious service, a number which would have been inconceivably low for any previous generation.

When asked about this, Fr Leon explained “[religious institutions] have a big PR problem, and that will take years to overcome because we’ve had a very bad recent history in terms of PR, in terms of image. And also, it has to be said, in terms of a very clear agenda who are just anti-religion and anti-Catholic, so they paint it in a very negative light.”

He likened being in a religious community to a stained glass window, saying “If you’re looking at beautiful stained glass windows from the outside you see something very dull and dark, but if you’re inside you see it’s splendor, and you sense it and you taste it and you rejoice in it, that’s what it’s like from the inside.”

With the religious makeup of Irish society constantly changing, and the number of people practising nonChristian religions rising steadily over the past several censuses, the space for an interfaith approach is there, and while the religions with active student societies may be over represented presently, students of smaller, less recognised faiths may find a place in the Interfaith.

Centrally drafted contracts in Irish Rugby are a way to the top spot While rugby in Ireland is by no means weak, with a world cup on the horizon, Séamus McAuliffe and Brendan Byrne ask could it be made even stronger for the next world cup cycle?

Munster played Swansea in the province’s first ever European Cup tie in November 1995 with a crowd of 5,000 attendees at Thomond Park. Six months earlier, 6,500 people had witnessed Shannon and Young Munster play out a 3-3 draw in an early round of the Munster Senior Cup. This is far removed from the modern day landscape of the game. As the amateur game is becoming an extinct creature, the professional game continues to thrive. However the strength of the professional game largely depends on which province you are in. Many high quality players are funnelled towards Leinster and, to a lesser extent, Munster. Connacht will be well aware of this trend having lost Robbie Henshaw and Mike McCarthy in recent times. Similarly, players have had to leave Leinster in search of playing time due to their deep pool of talent; Andrew Conway, Jordi Murphy and Joey Carbery to name but a few.

Leinster and Munster appear to have first refusal

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on young talent. Is this model of player development sustainable? Is promoting two top tier provinces, while Uster and Connacht lag behind, the best way to support the international team? It has been suggested that a change of focus is needed and funding in the current system by a move towards grassroots development and an emphasis on the college game. A possibly avenue to pursue is by introducing and NFL style college draft.

The draft is the primary form of player recruitment in the NFL. In its basic form, the way it functions is the 32 teams in the NFL are ranked by their record from the previous season. Picks 1-20 are allocated by regular season form, while picks 21-32 are allocated on playoff form of the teams successful enough in the regular season to reach the playoffs. For example, last year the Cleveland Browns 0-16, and so they got the first overall pick out of the crop of college players who had declared their availability for the draft. In this case, that was the star quarterback Baker

Mayfield who has been a success, with the team showing marked improvement already. The Philadelphia Eagles (the Super Bowl champions) got the 32nd pick. Then, in the second round, the order alternates. The best team have the opening second round pick and the worst team have the closing second round pick. There is a total of seven rounds, with the order alternating each time.

The draft system is hugely important to the NFL, leading to huge interest in the college game. In 2015, the average attendance of an NFL game was 68,400. That same year, the 130 schools in the NCAA Division 1 college game garnered an average attendance of 41,979. For an NFL style draft to apply, the Irish rugby set up there would need a redirection of emphasis towards collegiate rugby.

The records of the four provinces in the previous season would then dictate who gets first pick of the emerging talent. This would result in four competitive provinces receiving an even distribution of future international stars.

During the 2017/18 season, €10,805,084 was spent on ‘Elite Player Development’ by the IRFU. €2,929,136 of this went to academies and €447,388 to age-grade teams.

These funds would have to be reinvested in other areas, as players would not become committed to provinces before college. Academies would act on a geographical basis preparing players for college. With a refocus of funds and energy towards the grassroots club game and game promotion, an increase in participation is predictable, democratising the game further.

Peter Dooley is a loosehead prop for Leinster with five appearances so far this season. In an interview conducted with The University Observer, he gave his thoughts on the idea of a draft system. While his first impression was that it may be difficult for the players to move away from home, as in the American model, Dooley also saw the positive impacts an NFL style draft could have. He pointed out how the players coming out of the draft would have no control over who they which team they were selected to play for; “[but] I suppose if you were brought up that way you’d know no different, that’s the way NFL players are - they know no different. It doesn’t bother them who they play for as long as they make the NFL”.

Perhaps this would lend itself to a culture of everyone pulling towards the national team? A culture the IRFU have already instilled here by way of centralised contracts - which has been largely successful. Being one of the very few players in the Leinster setup who came through the club system rather than the schools (along with Tadhg Furlong and Sean O’Brien), Dooley is aware of how a

college based draft system would displace the emphasis placed on schools rugby: “It levels the playing field and it would benefit the grassroots rugby especially”.

The strength of rugby in Ireland at the moment is undeniable - thanks to the international and provincial success. The strength of the sport is essential in making a draft system viable. For colleges to benefit from the change in emphasis there would have to be adequate promotion of third level rugby in order to gain interest. In the 2016/17 season’s Champion’s Cup, the highest average attendance in the tournament was Leinster with 30,081. They were followed by Munster in second place (25,900), Ulster in sixth (16,028) and Connacht in eighteenth (7,263).

Leinster also topped the attendance charts in the Pro 14 that season, with Ulster and Munster rounding out the top 3. According to attendance figures, Irish people have the largest appetite for rugby in the northern hemisphere - so if any rugby union could successfully implement change and generate public interest in a high quality college game it would be the IRFU. The German Football Association (DFB) is an example of how re-energizing a game from the grassroots yields results. Following their group exit in the 2004 European Championships, they studied the academies in Ajax and other Dutch clubs with a history of producing talent. 390 bases across Germany were set up with coaches supported by psychologists to assist physical and mental growth for youths aged 11-17. This contributed to a ten year turnaround resulting in a Germany being crowned World Cup champions. While the IRFU do not have the same resources as the DFB; their income is growing year on year and they have never before been in such a position of strength to implement such a radical change to the current rugby landscape.

One of the primary objectives of the Student Sport Ireland’s 2017-2020 Strategic Plan is to “identify and prioritise the securing of additional funding”. Concentrated funding and interest from the IRFU would benefit these aims. The centralised contract system has been a huge success in Irish rugby in managing player welfare around international periods. It is also this centralised contract system that would make transition to a draft system possible; something that could not be done in France or England for example, where clubs hold much more power.

While rugby in Ireland is by no means weak, with a world cup on the horizon, could it be made even stronger for the next world cup cycle?

SCIENCE Moonlighting: a novel approach to streetlights Rory Clarke examines the plausibility of China’s latest streetlight solution – a fake moon.

As winter sets in, the days are getting shorter and the ever-oppressive darkness seems to reign supreme. Modern society has come up with varied solutions to the problem that sunlight-less mornings and evenings present us with.

From turning back the clocks to streetlights, mankind has been creative in trying to keep the darkness at bay.

However, these efforts are nothing as compared to the recent proposal in Chengdu, China where a group of scientists have a rather more ambitious goal. Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Co. Ltd want to augment the faint light of our existing Moon with a second man-made moon, more powerful and controllable than that which nature has provided us with.

The proposals were reported earlier this year in People’s Daily, one of the largest publications in China with direct links to the ruling Communist party. Although officially termed an “illumination satellite”, the proposed project has cultivated notoriety as a “fake moon”. If constructed, the giant mirror-oriented satellite would be “designed to complement the Moon at night” with light reportedly eight times as bright, according to Wu Chunfeng, the chairman of the Institute. Wu, speaking at a national innovation and entrepreneurship conference in Chengdu revealed that they hope to have the satellite in place by 2020.

As for its capabilities, Wu has claimed that the satellite will be able to illuminate an area 10 to 80 kilometers in diameter, the exact location of which can be controlled to within several dozen meters.

The original conceptualisation of an artificial moon has been credited to a French artist, who reportedly imagined a cosmic reincarnation of the famous Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. The anonymous artist boldly suggested placing mirrors in space to create perennial sunshine through Parisian streets and markets.

Although this plan may seem audacious and almost surreal, there is a precedent for artificial illumination in space. Three computerised mirrors were installed in the sky above a Norwegian town previously veiled in near constant winter darkness, Rjukan. These mirrors were programmed to track the movement of the Sun and reflect its illuminating rays down onto the town square. Although this was but a small and isolated example, it demonstrates that neither the concept nor the technology is entirely untested.

Additionally, in the 1990s, a group of Russian scientists launched a satellite from Znamya into space with the aim of reflecting sunlight back to Earth. Their stated aim was to “test the feasibility of illuminating points on Earth with light equivalent to that of several full moons” according to the New York Times. They succeeded only to the extent that Earth was briefly illuminated by a beam 5 kilometres in diameter (not quite several Moons), but the overall concept was demonstrated admirably.

This is not just a astronomer’s pet project. There are many who believe that this has the potential in the longterm to be financially profitable. Mr Wu has been quoted as saying that substituting artificial lunar light for streetlights in an area of 50 square kilometres could save up to 1.2bn

yuan ($173m) a year in electricity costs. Although the initial research and production costs of the “fake moon” may be much greater, there is potential for getting a solid return on the investment. This mindset is one certainly shared by Dr Matteo Ceriotti, a lecturer in Space Systems Engineering at the University of Glasgow, who told the BBC to “think of this as sort of an investment. Electricity at night is very expensive so if you could say, have free illumination for up to 15 years, it might work out better economically in the long term.”

From a science perspective, the fake moon is plausible.

To serve its purpose, the satellite would have to remain in permanent orbit over Chengdu. This would require it to be located at around 37,000 feet in geostationary orbit.

This presents several difficulties for the project. Firstly, the satellite’s pointing direction system would have to be extremely accurate, as any micro-errors in space would disproportionately affect the direction on Earth. Secondly, the reflecting mirror would have to be colossal to have

any impact at that range. Furthermore, as ludicrous as it may sound, there is actually limited space, in space.

According to international standards, all satellites in geostationary orbit should, for safety reasons, be separated by 1000 km. Consequently, the project would face a fight with telecom operators and governments for one of 1800 global “parking spaces” for their “fake moon”. Indeed, the allocation system, administered by the International Telecommunications Union, is based on a first-come, firstserved basis. Although spaces can be bought/leased, this is usually at exorbitant cost. For example, in 1988, Tonga auctioned five orbital slots for $2m per year, which equated to a daily cost of approximately $5,480.

There is a degree of uncertainty surrounding the political capital behind the project, with neither the city of Chengdu nor the Chinese government having yet been announced publicly as backers. This could prove problematic, in terms of generating the vast capital investiture required to get this project off the ground.

Concerns about disturbing the long-established routines of nocturnal animals and others should not be given too much credence according to Kang Weimin, director of the Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace, Harbin Institute of Technology. Weimin is confident that the “dusk-like” quality of the light will ensure that it does not disturb the animal populations of China. For similar reasons, the field of astronomical exploration would not be unduly affected by the project, were it to go ahead. This has not stopped several Chengdu residents complaining that this will only add to the light pollution they face daily.

Nearly 20 years ago, celebrated science editor of the BBC, Dr David Whitehouse, famously said, in response to the Znamya experiments, that there was “not the slightest chance that the Earth will be girdled with space mirrors in the foreseeable future.” While it may no longer be possible to say this with such conviction, the city of Chengdu faces significant challenges before its artificial moon joins the cosmic club.

The unity of knowledge - and how it binds us together Sean Mooney examines the philosophical claim that all knowledge is ultimately connected.

Biology has Darwin’s theory of evolution and physics has the Standard Model but, at present, there is no equivalently unifying theory in the social sciences. This has not been for a want of trying. Psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and evolutionary psychology represent some of the admiral attempts but they have had their critics. The search for

“Aspects of our society like art and culture, and even consciousness itself, are emergent properties and we cannot learn everything there is to know about them by looking at the atoms of which they consist.” a framework bringing together the humanities and also the sciences set the stage for E.O. Wilson’s 1998 book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Although one of the world’s leading authorities on myrmecology (the study of ants), in his book Wilson discusses possible methods of uniting the sciences and humanities as one.

There are two avenues of thinking that can be taken to unify these subjects, namely, epistemological and ontological unity. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. For example, a key question in epistemology is “how do we know what we know?”. Ontology is the philosophical study of being, and is centered on problems like “what is a thing?”. However, these abstruse philosophical definitions can be set aside for more distinct real-world examples.

From school through to university, the domain of knowledge is split into different subjects. You learn about glaciers in geography and about WW1 in history.

Even though information is siloed into different subjects, the findings from any subject must agree with all others.

2 + 2 = 4 is true in biology, economics, and everything in between. This compartmentalisation of knowledge is a practical measure only, and a forgivable one at that. To master a subject today, it is necessary to become hyper-

specialised in one small niche (like myrmecology) because the lines of inquiry now run so deep.

Now, new fields are starting to pop up in the gaps between the domains. Astrobiology, space law, and evolutionary computing are some examples of this crossover knowledge. The rise of machine learning is also fueling many instances of crosstalk, by chipping away at the barriers between biology and technology. Light is a useful metaphor for here. Before light was understood, colours were thought to be distinct. We now know there are gradations across the spectrum that fill the gaps between them, just like the different disciplines being studied today.

While physics and biology might seem like independent avenues of inquiry, there is no bright line between them, and both are seeking the same insights. This is a unity in a horizontal sense, that is, between subjects.

What we’ve described is the epistemological approach to the unity of knowledge, which relies on bridging the gap between different subjects on the basis that they are all tapping into the same underlying truths of the Universe.

Ontological unity takes a physical reductionist approach to unifying knowledge, and it is what Wilson argues for in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. This has vertical connotations: the subjects are dependent upon one another, with physics at the bottom.

For example, culture emerges from a population, where each person is a biological system. The workings of an individual organism falls under the remit of biochemistry, and ultimately chemistry. At bottom, chemistry is concerned with how atoms and their electrons interact. The study of the fundamental particles that make up atoms is the domain of physics, and this rabbit hole continues on to some form of multidimensional string theory explained by quantum mechanics. This line of reasoning begs the question, can culture be explained by, and hence derived from, physics? If we knew the precise location and momentum of every atom in the Universe, could we calculate every future event?

While interesting, Wilson’s argument that everything can be explained by a minimum common denominator is a hard pill to swallow. Aspects of our society like art and culture, and even consciousness itself, are emergent properties and we cannot learn everything there is to know about them by looking at the atoms of which they consist.

For example, artists predominantly paint using colours the human eye can see, rather than in the infrared or ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. That is, there are biological and physical explanations constraining art. However, it would be naive to think this tells us anything useful about the artwork.

A term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett, a “deepity” is a statement that can be read in two ways: On one reading, it is true but trivial, whereas in another light, it is patently false, albeit more interesting. For example, “age is only a number” is a deepity as this is trivially true: Age is literally just number which increases from birth.

However, read another way, it is poking at something more, that is, age is irrelevant. This is patently false. As we get older, we become more mature, our health can deteriorate, and so on. But the phrase “age is only a number” can pose as a profound claim by hiding between these two interpretations. Popular psychology is rife with deepities, and some argue that Wilson’s central thesis is one too.

While it is trivially true to say that everything depends on physics (reading #1), to say that from physics we can learn everything there is to know about an emergent property like culture is false albeit interesting (reading #2).

Reducing everything to physics is a neat idea but for now it is just that. Nature cares little for how pretty a theory is and whether the claim is even true is an open question. To try and predict something as complicated as the global banking system on the basis of individual elementary particles is so far beyond our reach, it isn’t a useful lens through which to view the issue. On a practical level, an explanation of a phenomenon should only go one level deeper than the phenomenon itself, so for example the banking system is best understood by examining its constituent parts, namely the banks themselves. It is true that everything in existence is just a manifestation of the energy released in the Big Bang 13 billion years ago but, rest assured, we won’t be deploying the predictive powers of quantum mechanics to solve the housing crisis any time soon.

21ST NOVEMBER 2018

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SCIENCE

The state of flow

James Donaghey examines how exactly we can get in the zone.

All of us at some stage experience the state of “flow” or of being “in the zone”. This is a state of mind that is the result of one becoming wholly absorbed in an activity, and it is named for the feeling of being carried away, as if by a current, while experiencing it. Its hallmarks include not noticing the passage of time and forgetting about significant stressors. Scientists who were interested in studying the state of flow targeted groups already experiencing stress, such as law students waiting on their bar exam results.

To induce a state of flow, they used the classic computer game, Tetris. The researchers found that after the students had been “in the zone”, their stress had been replaced by more positive feelings.

In 1975, the psychologist who first identified flow, Mihály Csikzentmihályi, laid out the three primary components required for a task if it were to lead to the feeling of flow. The first is immediate feedback and, in the game of Tetris, this is the score. The second component is the feeling that there is the potential to succeed and this

motivates the person to continue with the activity. In a game as simple as Tetris, everyone begins with the belief that such a seemingly simple objective as stacking blocks must be easy to fulfil. Finally, one must become so engrossed that their other needs are neglected. This was what drew

“To induce a state of flow, they used the classic computer game, Tetris.”

Csikzentmihályi’s attention in the beginning: he wondered how artists could reportedly become so engrossed in their work that they forgot to eat or sleep.

While these three components can be applied to many activities, there are certain areas in which flow is much more noticeable. Sports, hobbies and exercises that meet

the three conditions are the first instances which spring to mind, and most people have experienced flow while participating in them. Video games are a growing market which envelope the players in the zone, sometimes to an unhealthy degree, to the extent that the implementation of health warnings has become necessary. The outcomes of the Flappy Bird controversy included people losing their jobs, families falling apart and the creator of the game receiving death threats, leading to its discontinuation. The users that experienced these negative impacts on their life were victims of addiction, caught in flow, and they neglected their responsibilities in order to keep playing.

Flow is a key aspect of the “10,000-hour rule”, which is the belief that one can gain world-class expertise in an area if they practice it correctly for 10,000 hours. In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell identifies this in violinists in an orchestra, where the hours spent practicing over the course of a few years are proportional to how the violinist is rated. With a good coach or teacher, the first two

rules of flow can be met, and the third is what determines whether the person gets in the zone or not. There needs to be some element of enjoyment derived from the activity. If not, the absorption does not occur, the activity becomes a chore, and it becomes menial and boring or too difficult. In the experiments that used Tetris, the hypothesis was that playing the game would cause a state of flow because it met these conditions, thereby invoking positive feelings and reduce stress.

As mentioned, there can be negative elements to flow.

The negligence of basic needs can result in a deterioration of physical and mental health. Additionally, if there is a belief or agenda involved in a flow-inducing activity, it can become ingrained in one’s mind. The “Tetris effect” is not directly connected to flow, but it is relevant: this occurs

“He wondered how artists could reportedly become so engrossed in their work that they forgot to eat or sleep.” when someone devotes so much time to an activity that it permeates and shapes their thoughts, mental images and dreams. The Grand Theft Auto games came under fire in 2003 when Devin Moore killed three police personnel, injured more and stole a police car. It was later found out that Moore had been playing Grand Theft Auto day and night for months. On his capture, he was quoted as saying: “Life is a video game. Everybody’s got to die sometime.”

Some argued that his addiction to the violent game had caused his perception of reality to become distorted. It is this component of flow, where one can become so engrossed that they neglect their own needs.

While flow has been recognised as a psychological state, its full potential has yet to be seen in practical applications.

One experiment, which stressed out participants by telling them that their photograph was going to be shown to other students, found that inducing a flow state could stop bad news being committed to memory. Another experiment that was carried out on PhD students while they were seeking jobs came to the same conclusion: playing Tetris lead to a feeling of detachment from the outside world and negativity was broadly replaced by positivity while playing the game.

One should not conclude that therapy should be replaced by a gaming session, because when in a state of flow, a person is distracted not only from the stressful situations in their life, but from all of the positive aspects too.

The state of flow sounds like a convenient tool, particularly for students, to become entranced by work and to negate the distractions, but this is a single-minded view. There are possible negative consequences, the outcomes of which can be far reaching. If flow is to be prescribed as a medication, it should come with a warning label.

Personalised medicine: Accurately diagnosing sex differences Historically, medicines have been tested for use in men and not women. Evelyn Elias looks at the implications of this practice.

In Issue 3, we spoke about how genes can affect an individual’s risk of getting a disease, and how they may respond to a given treatment. In some ways, this problem is quite basic, relying on genes found on just two chromosomes: X and Y. The Institute of Medicine in the US has said that every cell in our bodies has a sex. By this they mean to say that each of our cells is equipped with either a pair of XX chromosomes, or a set of XY chromosomes. Often times we relate this difference purely to the reproductive systems. However, it goes far beyond this, and in ways that are not so obvious. The sex chromosomes are responsible mainly for differences in hormone production; females predominantly make oestrogen and progesterone while males predominantly make testosterone and associated hormones. Although it may seem reductionist to view biology in this way, this small difference in X and Y has very significant effects on the body. Indeed, those hormones influence many genes, and impact the expression of those genes. Furthermore, sex chromosomes comprise approximately 5% of the human genome.

However, researchers have largely failed to take this

12 VOL. XXV, ISSUE 4

into consideration when studying diseases, treatments, or chemicals that might affect the sexes differently. The exclusion of women in all areas of health research has led us down the road of health inequity.

It begins in the preclinical setting, where there is a widespread bias toward male animals, and female animals are sparsely used in the study of diseases and the testing of drugs. Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said in a 2014 report that: “The science that informs medicine—including the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease—routinely fails to consider the crucial impact of sex and gender. This happens in the earliest stages of research, when females are excluded from animal and human studies or the sex of the animals isn’t stated in the published results.”

Although this may not seem like a big deal, when female mice are excluded from pre-clinical studies, they fail to test for how the drugs may interact with the various reactions that are happening differently in females. The sex of the animal can lead to different results, and this bias can compromise the effectiveness and safety of drugs in women, should the drug make it to the market. Male

animals have become the default for several reasons; mainly funding (male mice are cheaper) and they are easier to work with due to the 4-day ovarian cycle of female rodents. Indeed, this causes greater expenses when caring for female mice, and funding agencies often do not cover the larger cost of using female animals. The lack of sexbased animal testing perpetuates the gap down the road, and the use of female animals in research could aid the acceleration of personalized medicine for women.

This problem then bleeds into clinical trials, often the next phase of pharmaceutical research. Women are under-represented in clinical trials. This was first brought up as an issue in 1989, after a major study on the effects of aspirin on cardiovascular disease was revealed to have included 22,071 men and zero women. Indeed, up until the late 1980s, clinical trials of new drugs by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US were predominantly conducted on men, despite the fact that women consume approximately 80% of pharmaceuticals in the US. Since then, women have been included in trials more often, however, researchers seldom analyse and report the results of the trials by sex. As a result, they fail to determine whether there are gender differences in adverse drug reactions. The results from these studies are often simply extrapolated to women, without any consideration of how it may affect them. Women are therefore, still to this day, prescribed doses that are calculated based on men’s average weight, the way men metabolise the drug and the rate at which it is excreted from men’s bodies. For example, paracetamol, a very commonly used pain reliever, is eliminated from the female body at approximately 60% of the rate than it is in men. Other widely used drugs such as Aspirin and Valium have never been tested in a randomized controlled trial setting with data stratified by sex. This oversight of drug dosing based on sex puts women at higher risk of adverse effects of medication, or even overdosing.

There are several reasons why historically women have been excluded from clinical trials. However, the main reasons often revolved around pregnancy. After the thalidomide scare in the 1970s, researchers became very reluctant to test medication on women of childbearing potential for fear of the effects it may have on foetuses. This is problematic in many ways. First, women of childbearing potential make up part of the demographic who would be using these drugs, and failing to include them in studies leads to failure of understanding the effects it would have on these women. Similarly, there has been widespread reluctance to test treatment of pregnant women because of the risks associated to developing foetuses. Although this does indeed pose an important risk, pregnant women who get sick or who are affected by chronic diseases that require medication are unable to fully understand their

risks or weigh the potential benefits due to lack of sufficient evidence on treatment effects in pregnant women.

Moving past clinical trials and into practice, the bias continues. The translation of research includes using the discoveries made in research studies to create new diagnostic and treatment protocols. When women are excluded from the evidence, they will inadvertently become excluded from these protocols as well, and sex differences will not be integrated into clinical practice.

This has been most noticeably remarked upon in the study and clinical presentation of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

It is the leading cause of death in women, and presents very differently in women and men at every level: in terms of prevalence, risk factors, physiology, presenting symptoms, and ultimately, outcomes. Despite this, only 35% of clinical trial subjects in CVD research are women, and only 31% of studies report the outcomes by sex.

Although the number of trials including women has increased, these results are often not translated into practice. For example, the concentration of biomarkers that suggest acute coronary syndromes differ in women and men, however the tests continue to use cut-off levels associated with male blood levels. Similarly, the gold standard of diagnosing non-obstructive coronary artery disease is through catheterization, despite the fact that women are more likely to experience ischemia from this procedure. This diagnostic test therefore is not suitable for diagnosing disease in women, however it is still the mainstream.

Although this seems like a bleak state of affairs for women, things are changing. In the past, women’s health revolved around reproductive health: birthing, contraception, abortion, breast and uterine cancer, premenstrual syndrome, and other illnesses affecting only women. However, the definition of women’s health has now expanded to encompass general female health – diseases unique to women, with higher prevalence in women, or diseases that present differently in women than in men.

Starting with animal models, action is coming from the academic journals, which are moving toward adopting a common set of guidelines for studies using animals and requiring details of the study methodology to include the sex of the animals used in their experiments. The FDA has also taken formal steps to support the inclusion of premenopausal women into clinical trials. Furthermore, clinical care practices should incorporate a sex-based focus in care and research.

This change however has not come without difficulties.

Reforming certain aspects of the way in which medical research is done requires changes in judgements of social worth and political will. Research on sex differences and sex-specific protocols must become the norm and not the exception, in order to promote the health of women.

SCIENCE

The Event Horizon Telescope: photographing black holes

If you had a telescope the size of the Earth, you might just be able to take the first high resolution image of a black hole the world has ever seen. How do we know black holes are out there, and how is the Event Horizon Telescope going to take their picture for the first time?

Leanne Durkan takes a look A black hole is a region in space in which gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light. Some black holes form when stars reach the end of their lives and collapse under their own gravity. As a star collapses it shrinks, condenses, and gravity escalates. The gravity can become so great that the star turns into a black hole as its light fades from existence. The edge of the black hole is called the event horizon, the point of no return. Only very massive stars become black holes at the end of their life, our Sun for example is not one of them.

Aside from black holes formed by stellar collapse, another classification is the supermassive black hole, believed to be found in the centre of galaxies. With masses of hundreds to billions of times the mass of our Sun, their formation is not fully understood. While black holes have been detected, none have actually been imaged. For over a decade, collaborators of the Event Horizon Telescope have been trying to take the first ever picture of a black hole, namely the one at the centre of our own galaxy.

How do we know there’s a black hole at the centre of our galaxy? In 1931, a radio signal was discovered coming from the direction of the centre of the Milky Way. In 1974, the object responsible for this radiation, Sagittarius A* (Sgr

black dot in the middle of it all. This was the vision of Dr. Sheperd Doeleman, the Director of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration.

Earth’s atmosphere blocks most of the high frequency radiation coming from space, luckily for us. However, low frequency radiation such as microwaves and radio waves are able to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere unimpeded, making them easier to observe on Earth. The light coming from the surroundings of SgrA* just happens to be a bright radio source, perfect for observation on Earth.

As radio waves have very long wavelengths, radio telescopes must be large in size. If a telescope is too large however, it may warp under its own weight. Instead, large arrays of smaller telescopes are often used to detect radio waves and the signals from each telescope are collated.

In order to approximate an image of SgrA* however, astrophysicists calculated that we would need a radio

telescope the size of the Earth. Obviously, this would be impossible. Astrophysicists are resourceful and were not deterred, however. Doeleman realised that by using telescopes capable of observing radio frequencies that were already in place, from the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica to The Greenland Telescope, and pointing them in the direction of the centre of our galaxy when conditions were good, we may not have a telescope the size of the Earth, but the next best thing.

This network of telescopes together forms The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). After many years of work, data was finally collected in April 2017 over the course of 10 days. Not only did the telescope image the location of SgrA* but also the supermassive black hole located in the M87 galaxy. So much data was collected that it couldn’t be sent over the internet and needed to be transported physically on various hard drives by air carrier. Data

from the different telescopes must be matched in order to produce an overall image, much like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, and is currently still being processed at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany for analysis. According to recent updates, the EHT project is proving to be highly successful. Hopefully soon we will have our very first image of a black hole. That, or something much more mysterious.

“How can we hope to see something that is, by definition, total darkness?”

So much data was collected that it couldn’t be sent over the internet and needed to be transported physically on various hard drives by air carrier” A*) was discovered, believed to be a supermassive black hole. Of course, black holes don’t emit their own radiation.

Due to their strong gravitational fields, any surrounding stars or clouds of gas are flung around in orbits at such speeds that they heat up and radiate. This is the radiation we observe and is detectable on Earth. More recent observations found that stars near the centre of the Milky Way had unusual, highly elliptical orbits around the object Sgr A*. What were they orbiting? Was it truly a black hole?

By analysing the stars’ orbits over a number of years, the position and the mass of the object they were orbiting, SgrA*, could be determined. The location of SgrA* was found to be at centre of the Milky Way, with an inferred mass of around 3.6 million times that of our Sun. The only known object to fit this description is a black hole.

While SgrA* has been indirectly detected, its existence inferred from the behaviour of the stars surrounding it as well as the radiation detected from the superheated gas spiralling it, no one has ever truly seen it. How can we hope to see something that is, by definition, total darkness?

If we could somehow take a picture of the matter that is glowing brightly around SgrA*, perhaps we could see a big

How does sex equality affect personality?

Jack Lynch explores the surprising finding that in countries with higher levels of gender equality, the personality differences between the sexes are greater.

What would you expect to find if you compared the personalities of men and women? Psychologists have been studying personality for decades, and while it would be too extreme to say that “men are from Mars and women from Venus”, they have identified some key ways in which the genders differ. Today’s predominant model of personality contains five traits: openness to experience; conscientiousness; extraversion; agreeableness; and neuroticism (proneness to negative emotion).

By studying cultures from around the world, researchers

have found that there are reliable gender differences in in some of these five traits. It may not be surprising that the sexes are far more similar than they are different, however. The difference is such that if you picked man and a woman at random from the population, and made a bet that the man was less agreeable (read as less polite and compassionate), you would be correct about 60% of the time. This represents one of the larger gender differences in personality. Generally, the differences are smaller.

And of course, these being averages, one cannot infer the

“In the countries with the highest levels of gender equality, the personality differences between the sexes are the largest. ”

personality of another person merely by knowing their sex.

As with most things psychological, a nature/nurture debate rages on this topic. To what extent can these differences be attributed to the society in which one grows up? It would be reasonable to assume that gender differences in personality are greater in societies where men and women are not treated equally. Surely societies which teach women supposedly “traditional” ideals create women with a more dominant ‘agreeable’ personality, for example? As it turns out, this is where our intuitions fail us. A large number of studies have repeatedly shown that the opposite is true. In the countries with the highest levels of gender equality, the personality differences between the sexes are the largest.

This surprising finding has stirred a lot of debate as to the most reasonable interpretation of these data. At present, the most widely-accepted theory is that in societies where men and women are most free to live as they please, there is less of a need to adopt the opposite-gender personality traits that lead to successful functioning in that society.

In gender-equal societies, the idea goes, men can be men without needing to change themselves, and women can be women without needing to change themselves.

Where cultural constraints on behaviour are removed, the evolutionary biological differences between the sexes become more apparent.

This idea is supported by the occupational choices of men and women in these countries. In countries which rate highly on measures of gender equality like Norway and Sweden, there are more female nurses and male engineers than in less gender-equal countries like India. One could point out here that notions of masculinity and femininity vary cross-culturally, such that in countries like India, where the sexes are far from equal, engineering is not seen as a masculine field. This is also the case in Middle Eastern

countries, where unlike in the West, STEM subjects are not stereotypically masculine. So, while gender differences in personality may maximise in more gender-equal countries, this may in part be due to the different notions of what masculinity and femininity entails.

Contrary to this is research which points out that men and women differ in terms of their interest in things and people, on average, men are more interested in things, and women are more interested in people. This even holds in other primates, with research showing that male infant monkeys gravitate towards gadgets and toys, while female infant monkeys prefer dolls. This would suggest that the

“In countries which rate highly on measures of gender equality like Norway and Sweden, there are more female nurses and male engineers than in less gender-equal countries like India. ” STEM subjects, with their almost infamous narrow focus on things, would be preferred by men. This supports the mainstream interpretation of the data on cross-cultural gender differences in personality and occupation, which holds that men and women in gender-equal societies are free to gravitate towards those areas in which they are interested, rather than those which offer the best. This is likely due in part to the fact that gender equality is highly correlated with measures of economic prosperity.

The data are in, but the jury is out. The debate over the most plausible explanation of this phenomenon is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Most researchers agree that this problem needs to be approached from a variety of angles – sociological, psychological, anthropological, and evolutionarily.

21ST NOVEMBER 2018

13

STUDENT VOICES

Make UCD accessible again Auditor Hannah Bryson explains who the Disability and Inclusion Awareness Society are, encouraging students to inform themselves on practical steps to accessibility.

Over the last few years, ‘accessibility’ has become a buzzword for those concerned about disability. As the UCD society on disability inclusion, we want to help UCD think about how to do this. A way we hope to start off the conversation is to talk about what accessibility is and introduce a guide we are releasing soon on how events can be made more accessible.

We have noticed the main focus of accessibility conversation tends to be around wheelchair access. Venues will proudly advertise that they are fully accessible when they are step free and wheelchair accessible; however, the needs of individuals with other disabilities are ignored.

Similarly, the international symbol for disability is a logo of a person in a wheelchair, when the majority of individuals with a physical disability do not use this aid. We are almost conditioned to only think of individuals that use a wheelchair when we think of people with disabilities. The 1994-1995 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) found that 74% of those with disabilities don’t use a wheelchair or anything else that might visually signal their impairment to the outside world. Some even claim as many as 90% have what is defined as an “invisible disability”.

The need to improve accessibility and awareness for those living with invisible disabilities is evident.

Invisible disabilities range from mental illnesses, hearing or sight loss, chronic pain, chronic illness, and learning difficulties. These are not considered when most people think about accessibility. However, due to a lack of supports available in our society, these disabilities can be as much of a barrier to people as those disabilities requiring a wheelchair.

According to the 2016 Census, 13.5% of the Irish population identified themselves as having a disability, and last year over 1,260 students were registered with UCD’s Access & Lifelong Learning centre. This is not, by any means, a comprehensive number of the disabled on campus, as this doesn’t include students who don’t feel the need for extra academic support, those currently waiting to get diagnosed or those unaware of the service. These are students who may potentially have reservations about attending extracurricular events because their needs aren’t likely to be thought of until they arrive at the door. So what can clubs and societies do to encourage these members to turn up?

Most event planners know accessibility is important, as it means providing equal opportunities for all students to participate regardless of any unconventional requirements they might need. This is why there is constant mention of trying to make events accessible. These mentions rarely say how to do this, and those without disabilities think being accessible requires this big thing of changing a whole event or involves something expensive. Due to the stigma attached, most are unsure how to approach the question of becoming more accessible. In most cases, however simply being aware of what makes your event inaccessible and

conveying this through advertising, or making a small change like priority seating or offering subtitles is enough of a start.

This is why the Disability Inclusion and Awareness Society (DIAS) with the help of Ellen Murray, a notable accessibility activist from Belfast, have put together a guide that talks about how important having accessibility information is. This entails disclosure of disability accommodations, what to think about regarding seating, quiet spaces, food and drink, and pointers when hosting off-campus events.

The guide also gives information on what to think about or be aware of so your event can possibly be accessible for blind; visually impaired and light-sensitive people; deaf; hard of hearing and sound-sensitive people; autistic people; people with mental health difficulties; service dog users and people with mobility issues.

It is my hope that this guide raises awareness of different types of disabilities. Accessibility is an important issue for my family and I, as I am autistic and have a coordination disability (dyspraxia). My sister for the last ten years has been dealing with a chronic illness. There have been countless times where we have felt conscious or judged for using a lift or priority seating as we aren’t visibly disabled people. We have both found it daunting to ask for accommodations as we don’t know what the reaction will be. Having those little changes like priority seating for all disabilities or mentioning that is okay for people to leave and come back in when less overwhelmed has made us feel welcomed.

Through the editing of this guide, we as a committee, have learned a lot about other disabilities. I, for example, didn’t know much about service dogs and through rewriting sections with a long-term service dog user, I learned a lot.

We are putting plans in place to make our own events more accessible next year starting by having accessible information on each Facebook event page, having signs in the open dyslexia font on the door at each event and a tin of fidget/stim toys.

We are making this guide accessible to every society through email so that they too can make small changes to become more accessible. The guide will also be printed so that the auditor of every society can have a hard copy with them. Extra copies will be made available in the UCD Access & Lifelong Learning centre (right by James Joyce Library) and with James Alkayed, Chair of UCD Societies Council. You are welcome to contact DIAS with any questions about accessibility or the guide.

To celebrate the releasing of this guide we are holding an accessibility week, from the 19th-23rd November, which will consist of a chance to try wheelchair basketball on Wednesday and an accessibility treasurer hunt across campus on Thursday. We will have games so you can understand a little more about dyslexia, autism and using a wheelchair.

Equality in UCD? Aoibhs McGills To celebrate and spread awareness about the new Equality and Gender Inclusion project in UCD, I felt it was about time to ask the students (cis, trans or non-conforming) of UCD their thoughts on gender and how it affects them on a daily or regular basis.

UCD’s new policies on gender equality and inclusion within its communities has sparked a new awareness among students who do not conform to societal constraints.

When asked four gender-related questions, this is how a group of current UCD students replied - showing the progress achieved in UCD by allowing open discussions and creating an inclusive and opportune environment for the future generation to grow and understand topics that before would have been dismissed and ignorantly denied.

What does the term “gender” mean to you?

- “For me, gender is someone’s masculine or feminine identity, to whatever extent that may be at any point on that spectrum.”

- “Gender, on a personal level, is the core of my existence. I suppose it’s everything, but it’s also nothing. If society wasn’t so fixated on trying to control it, I probably wouldn’t feel it to be the core of my being. But my gender

is the centre of me, and how I express myself.”

- “I think it’s important for people to learn to distinguish between the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. I wouldn’t have realised there was a difference until recently, probably when I first came to college. Your gender is your identity, your choice, your own. I would consider gender a fluid concept but something also quite unequal.”

- “It’s a construction of society’s views, built out of fear. Gender in my opinion is a fluid spectrum that ranges between masculine and feminine, non affected by the biological sex at birth. Gender is an expression of personality, gender is completely unique to each individual and can change.”

- “I try not to let my own gender identity affect my learning and social ability, but I think it is always in my mind. I suppose it affects these things as I have to factor in

Would someone’s gender identity affect your learning or social ability in your school?

- “I don’t think so as most of our learning style is quite neutral and objective, however I don’t think it’s fair for me to judge as perhaps someone with a less common gender identity might have a different perspective. In terms of social ability, I’d like to think that most people in my school are open enough but again, I wouldn’t be the optimum judge.”

possible negative reactions or bigotries to my gender.”

- “It wouldn’t affect my learning in the slightest. I strongly believe in and advocate for equality. I’m more concerned in a someone’s personality and wellbeing than in how they choose to identify.”

- “As someone who does not identify with their birth affirmed gender, I tend to steer from this subject in my school - even if it results in being misgendered and misnamed. Genderqueer is not widely accepted in my school.”

“Gender, on a personal level, is the core of my existence. I suppose it’s everything, but it’s also nothing.”

How do you think academics would approach gender, would it change or affect a lecturer’s behaviour towards a student?

- “I’d like to think academics would be unbiased and considerate when dealing with all students regardless of their gender. However, they are people too and unfortunately, just as in the real world, sometimes people tend to be prejudiced against certain groups.”

- “The majority of my degree surrounds gender, so my lecturers are very open, and many of them are LGBTQ+ themselves. However, in my three years here, only one lecturer has made it clear that if you want to be called a different name than registered, or different pronouns, then that’s ok.”

- “I’ve never noticed a distinction between the treatment of any gender when it comes to academics. However, I do remember hearing about someone in my course being questioned about their chosen identity last year. From my understanding, the incident was unprofessional and extremely inconsiderate. In many of my lectures, I don’t think it would have an effect.”

Would gender neutral bathrooms be a risk on campus - replacing gender specific facilities and rooms?

- “I don’t think it’s necessary to replace all gender segregated bathrooms/facilities with gender neutral ones.

However I do think there should be sufficient gender neutral alternatives for those who don’t feel comfortable conforming to a certain gender or even just for people who are uneasy for various reasons at the prospect of using

14 VOL. XXV, ISSUE 4

the gender orientated bathroom they’re ‘supposed’ to or expected to.”

- “I don’t see the problem with gender neutral bathrooms. However, if they replaced all gender specific bathrooms, there could be an issue. I feel that there’s some students very opposed to this idea, and I’d be worried for non-gender conforming students.”

- “I personally have no issue or see no risk for the cisgender community of UCD in the integration of nongendered bathrooms around campus. I feel that there may be a lot of confusion or resistance towards the non-gender bathrooms, but it is a nice development to see UCD are listening to the minority groups within LGBTQ+ students safety.”

- “Personally, I am not opposed to them. I mean a toilet’s a toilet and realistically there is little argument against why they are a good thing. In terms of risk, I think it’s minimal, perhaps the only risk being some minor kind of increase in sexual assault or exposure cases if taken advantage of by the wrong person, however I recognize that’s a slight reach.

In general, not an issue and a good idea.”

This article started with a sign outside bathrooms around campus and has ended with an acception and appreciation for those who struggle and who have fought and spoken about gender identity in UCD. This is the first step towards full equality; not between genders or sexualities or races or religions, but a full equality where one person is the same as the next, judged only by their efforts and achievements.

So congratulations UCD on taking one more action to becoming completely inclusive and equal. Where shall it take us next?

“I’d like to think academics would be unbiased and considerate when dealing with all students regardless of their gender. However, they are people too and unfortunately, just as in the real world, sometimes people tend to be prejudiced against certain groups.”

An poipín – an fiú an argóint?

GAEILGE

Pléann Hugh Mac Giolla Chearra na argóintí atá bainte leis an poipín.

Tá mí na Samhain linn arís, agus tá na rudaí a tagann leis an séasur linn cheana féin. Tá na laethanta ag iarriadh níos gaire, tá na maisiúcháin den Nollaig thart ar Sráid Grafton agus tá na Breatanaigh ag argóint faoi an poipín arís. Achan uile bhlian, feiceann muid na altannaí céanna ag deanamh maslacht ar Séamus Mac Léinne agus a leithead mar nach caitheann siad an poipín agus iad ag imirt peile. Cé gur chuir Séamus freagair ar na ceisteannaí seo ceithre bhliain ó shin i litir oscailte chuig na meáin, go fóill bíonn daoine ag chuir bagairtí bás chuige go reachtúil agus deirtear leis leis an Bhreataine a fágáil. Ach an bhfuil an cheart ag na daoine seo? Tá sé pléite go minic sin go bhfuil sé fusa dearmad a dhéanamh ar an míniú ar chúl den poipín agus an tús den argóint. Sílim gur cheart dúinne an stair a fhoglaim ar chúl an siombal sular déantar aon argointí faoi.

Anois, ar son an nochtadh iomlan, tá mé chun an iarracht is mó agus is féidir liom le bheidh go iomlán míchlaonta san alt seo ach tá seans go maith go táispeanfaidh mé mo chuid claontaí pearsanta san alt seo, ach déanfaí mé mo dhícheall.

Chuirtear tús leis an traidisiúin den poipín gar go leor ina dhiadh deireadh an Chéad Chogadh Domhanda. Léiriú an poipín i dán scríofta i rith an chogadh seo, darbh ainm “I Páirce Flanders”. Deirtear gurb é an poipín an chéad blath a d’fhás as an talamh sna áiteannaí a bhí saighdiuirí curtha ina dhiadh an troid. Fuair bean darbh ainm Moina Michael spreagadh ó an dán seo chun poipín a chaitheamh mar táispeantas tacaíocht do na saighdiúirí a bhí thar lear san Eoraip. Chaith sí an siombal seo thart ar chomhdáileanna ar fud fad na tíre. Chonaic bean darbh ainm Anna Guérin seo agus chruthaigh sí poipíní bréagach chun díol ag na chomhdáileanna seo. Taisteal sí thart ar an tír ag díol na poipíní seo chuig grúpaí iar-saighdiúirí go dtí gur ghlac an Airm sa Bhreataine aitheantas do agus rinne siad é mar an siombal oifigúil do saighdiúirí a bhfuair bás i rith na cogaidh uilig a bhí an Bhreataine mar pháirt do. D’úsaid na tíortha a bhí mar colíneachta ag Sasain cosúil leis an Nua Shéalainne agus an Astráil an siombal seo fosta mar siombal do a chuid saighdiúirí, agus úsaidtear é go fóill go dtí an lá atá inniú.

Le bliantaí, níor chaithear an poipín ach amháin ar Lá na Chuimhneacháin i lár mí na Samhain. Le bliantaí anuas afach, thosaigh polaiteoirí ag chaitheamh na poipíní níos luath agus níos luath go dtí an pointe gur chaithear iad i lár mí Deireadh Fomhair. Bíonn cheantaracha i Bhreatain go h-iomlán clúdaithe leis na poipíní chun fáil réidh don lá seo. Anois agus arís, bíonn táispeantasaí ollmhór thart ar na príomh cathracha. I 2014, líontar an díog in aice leis an Túr Londain le 888,246 poipíní ar son achan saighdiúir a fuair bás i rith an Chéad Chogadh Domhanda. Mar gheall gurb é seo an chéadamh bliain ó bhí an chogadh seo, tá cathracha ar nós Londain agus Manchester clúdaithe leis an siombal. Nuair a chuirtear chlár ar siúil ar teilifís i mBreataine i rith an mí seo, bíonn an fórmhór daoine ar an

chlár ag caitheamh an poipín fosta. I rith an mí seo, tá sé deacair an siombal a éalu.

Is siombal conspóideach é le tamaill. Mothaíonn grúpaí, chomh maith le chúpla iar-shaighdiúirí go bhfuil an poipín úsaidte chun pointí soisialta a baint amach. Chreideann daoine nach chaitheann polaiteoirí agus daoine i súil an phoball ach amháin mar go mothaíonn siad go bhfuil orthu sa dóigh go mbeidh siad abálta vótaí a fháil as iarshaighdiúirí i rith na toghcháin. Ní caitheann cúpla daoine cosúil le Jon Snow mar gheall nach bhfuil sé ag iarraidh níos mó aitheantas a táispeant do aon carthanas thar cheann ar bith eile. Dúirt sé i agallamh go raibh meoin olc ag daoine a shíleann gur cheart do achan nduine an poipín a chaitheamh, agus dúirt sé gur saghas faisisteachas atá ann chun an poipín a chuir ar daoine gan iad ag iarraidh é a

dhéanamh. Tá conspóid ag baint leis an siombal mar gheall ar an athrú a thainig thar am, fosta. Ag an am, d’úsaidtear an poipín mar siombal do saighdiúirí a fuair bás sa Chéad Chogadh Domhanda amháin, ach thar am, d’athraigh míniú an siombal le onóir a tháispeant do saighdiúirí in achan chogadh a bhí an Breataine páirteach ann. Thainig conspóid as seo, mar do daoine éigin, mothaigh siad go raibh siad ag táispeant tacaíocht do achan eachtra míleata a bhí déanta ag an Bhreataine, go háirithe na h-eachtraí uafasach a bhí déanta ag an Bhreataine san Ind agus Éireann. Is é seo an fáth go díreach cén fáth nach chaitheann imreoirí peile ar nós Séamus Mac Léinne agus Mario Mandžuki. Ní chaitheann Séamus é mar gheall ar na eachtraí a tharla i Doire i rith an Domhnach Fola i 1972, agus ní chaitheann Mario é mar gheall gur scriosadh baile

s’aige i rith buamáil NATO de Yugoslavia nuair a bhí sé níos óige. Is ábhar conspóideach é seo agus bíonn ar na imreoirí seo a chuid eachtraí a míniú achan uile bhliain mar gheall ar seo.

I mo thuairim féin, creidim nár cheart do duine ar bith an poipín a chaitheamh muna bhfuil suim acu é a chaitheamh. Tuigim féin go úsaidtear an poipín mar siombal do saighdiúirí as an tír seo a fuair bás i rith an Chogadh Mór agus má tá suim agat omós do na daoine seo, is féidir an poipín a chaitheamh. Ach ní cheapaim go bhfuil ar achan nduine an poipín a chaitheamh agus gur rud drochbhéasach é muna caithear é. Tá súil agam go mbeidh deireadh leis an conspóid thart ar an siombal gan mhoille ach creidim go mbeidh na argointí seo ar siúil ar feadh na bliantaí fada romhain.

Ó réabhlóidí go dtí laethanta saoire – an Gaeilge mar teanga rúnda Ar úsaid tú an Gaeilge agus tú thar lear? Pléann Hugh Mac Giolla Chearra an fáth.

Da mbeidh muid i domhan foirfe, beidh an Ghaeilge mar an príomh teanga sa tír galanta seo. Beidh sé le feiceáil achan áit, ní amháin i italics ar comhraí bóithre agus i seomraí ranga fuar, ach in achan choirnéal den tír. Ar an drochuair, ní hé seo an cás inár tír. Tá an méid sin fáthanna le tabhair tacaíocht leis na fáthanna don chás seo, ach go dtí sin, beidh orainne deighleáil leis na chártaí a tugadh dúinne. Sílim fhéin go bhfuil Éireannaigh ag glacadh buntaistí as an stadás an teanga, agus sílim go bhfuil seo an cás le bliantaí anuas. Tá stair ag an teanga anois mar teanga rúnda, úsaidte amháin nuair atá teachtaireachtaí le bheidh curtha go poiblí i lár slua daoine áit ar bith sa domhan. Tá an stadás seo den teanga go maith ar taobh amháin ach ar an taobh eile is féidir leis an méid damáiste sin a dhéanamh don teanga.

I dóigheanna beaga, shíleann an formhór daoine gurb

é club beag soisialta príobhaideach an Gaeilge. Nuair a labhraíonn mé le mo chuid chairde ó taobh amuigh de saol na Ghaeilge (is deacair é a chreidiúint, ach is fíor é), deireann siad liom go mbíonn siad neirbhíseach dul chuig áiteannaí lán Gaelach. Is é an sampla is coitianta de seo nó an Chlub Chonradh ar Sráid Fhearchair. Déanann mé achan uile iarracht chun mo chuid chairde a ghlacadh chuig an Chlub achan Dé Máirt ar son oíche na mac léinne.

Sílim fhéin gurb é an oíche is fearr den seachtain agus tú sa cathair. Díreach in aice le Babylon agus McDonalds, saor in aisce le dul isteach, agus deochannaí nach bhfuil costasach? Cloiseann sé gurb é an áit foirfe le dul amach sa chathair, ach bíonn eagla ar daoine dul isteach mar gheall ar an Ghaeilge. Shíleann siad go bhfuil preabaire mór scanrúil taobh amuigh den doras ag fanacht ar na daoine as an Pháil le teacht agus iad a marú ansin ar an spota mar

gheall gur úsaid siad an foinse gramadaí contráilte. Nuair a chuirim cheist ar mo chuid chomradaí faoi an Chonradh, is é an chéad cheist a chuireann siad nó “An é sin an chlub rúnda? Ní bhéinnse abálta dul, níl mé go huile is go h-iomlán líofa”. Aithníonn mé go bhfuil mé ag múineadh méileach don uan, ach muna raibh tú ag an Chlub go fóill agus níl an méid sin Ghaeilge agat, molfainn duit dul ann chomh minic agus is féidir leat. Is é ceann de na áiteannaí amháin sa chathair fuar liath seo go bhfuil cultúr na tíortha go fóill beo bríomhar sna ballaí agus sna daoine. Áit eile atá ar ár gcampas agus tá eagla ar daoine le dul isteach go dtí nó an seomra caidrimh i Newman.

Muna raibh eolas agat, tá spot beag i lár Newman a bhfuil micreaoigheann agus ann. Bíonn soicéadaí saor ann i gconaí, agus is áit ar dóigh é le stáidéar a dhéanamh nuair atá an leabharlann ró-lán agus ró-fuair. Agus an rud is

tábhachtaí, tá tae go h-iomlán saor in aisce ann. Tá an cliú agus cáil ag na muintir talmhaíocht go bhfuil an tae is saoire i foirgneamh s’acu, ach níl seo fíor ar chor ar bith.

Tá an tae go h-iomlán saor in aisce sa seomra caidrimh, agus níl aon cleasannaí ar bith go bhfuil ort a imirt chun an

Áit eile atá ar ár gcampas agus tá eagla ar daoine le dul isteach go dtí nó an seomra caidrimh i Newman. Muna raibh eolas agat, tá spot beag i lár Newman a bhfuil micreaoigheann agus ann. tae a fháil, tá sé díreach ansin. Ach tá eagla ar daoine dul isteach, mar gheall ar an stadás atá aige mar cheantar do na Ghaeilgeoirí. Shíl duine amháin go mbeidh air scrúdú a dhéanamh chun dul isteach agus suí síos fiú. Agus ní rud úr é seo. Tá na raflaí seo ar siúil thart ar UCD le bliantaí, ó mo chéad bhliain mar mac léinne. Ba mhaith liom an íomha sin a bhriseadh agus abair le daoine go bhfuil an spás sin go h-iomlán oscailte do daoine do leibhéal ar bith den teanga. Níl aon scrúdaithe, ní bheidh duine ar bith ansin chun tú a throid má chuireann tú focail amháin Béarla i do abairt, agus is féidir dul isteach gan ach “Dia duit” agus “Slán leat” a rá. Is áis ar dóigh é i UCD agus níl sé ró-dheacair a aimsiú. Má tá spás ciúin deas oscailte de dhith ort, úsáid an seomra seo. Úsaideann an fór-mhór daoine taobh amuigh de saol na Ghaeilge an teanga mar teanga rúnda, fosta. Ní thig leat a rá nár úsáid thú an teanga agus tú thar lear chun maslacht a dhéanamh ar daoine le do chuid chairde os comhair iad.

Nuair a bhí mé i Meiriceá an samhradh seo chaite, thainig feabhas ar Ghaeilge na daoine a bhí mé leo mar gheall go raibh orainne Gaeilge a labhairt nuair a bhí fadhbannaí againne le na daoine craiceáilte a bhí muid ag obair leo.

Cloisim nuair a bhfuil daoine ar a gcuid laethanta saoire ina dhiadh an Ard Teiste, gur úsaidtear an teanga agus iad sa Spáinne nó sa Ghréig. Agus nach beidh sin an dóigh gur cheart teanga a úsaid? Ní i seomra ranga, nó go foirmiúlta, ach le do chuid chairde nó le do ghrá-gheal agus tú thart ar an domhan ag pleidhcíocht.

Cé go bhfuil súil agam go dtiocfaidh feabhas ar stádas an teanga, tá dúil agam sa rúndacht den teanga fosta. Le chuidiú Dé, béidh níos mó daoine mar bhaill den chlub seo agus ní bheidh orainne é a úsaid go rúndach níos mó.

21ST NOVEMBER 2018

15

LAW & POLITICS

Ethical Framework of the Month: Deontology, or Kantian Ethics We give you an ethical framework to live by for the next month. This time, William Higgins gives you a brief rundown on deontology, or Kantian ethics, so that you can apply it to your life.

Deontology is a moral theory known for its strict obedience to the rules. The theory is essentially simple to understand and easy to apply to your life. Follow the rules in every situation. There aren’t many other calculations needed.

Probably the most famous philosopher of deontology and the one I’ll be focusing on is Immanuel Kant, known for his fittingly strict schedule — apocryphal stories suggest that he was so regular in his movements that the townspeople of Konigsberg set their watches by him — and by his influence on nearly every branch of modern philosophy. He was also quite racist and sexist, even by 18th-century standards, a legacy that is still in need of analysis and grappled with whenever we deal with his ethical formulations.

Central to his ethics was the idea of the categorical imperative versus the hypothetical imperative. Categorical imperatives are things that duty requires people to do, no matter what they want to do. Hypothetical imperatives are things that people have to do only if they want something.

Categorical imperatives can usually be easier to phrase as negatives, probably because there are very few things that can be phrased as absolutes outside of their results or cultural relativism. These would-be maxims are statements such as “don’t steal”, “don’t murder”, and other generally agreed upon prohibitions. While these are things you must not do, or in rare cases things that you must do, hypothetical imperatives are things like getting an education or getting triple bypass surgery when you have a massive heartattack. Whether you do them or not is not contingent on a set of moral rules but rather upon whether you want to broaden your career prospects or to improve your chances of avoiding a massive coronary events. This division is key to the ideas behind Kant’s ethics. It’s simple. Always follow the categorical imperative and only follow the hypothetical imperative when you want to.

Kant proposes several qualities of the categorical imperative that can be used to identify it and whether an action meets its level of morality. The most important one is the idea that every action should be considered as if it would be adopted as a universal rule that everyone should follow. This can be referred to as universalizability.

Before you do anything, think about what would happen if everyone followed your lead and acted in the same manner.

What would be the effect? If it would be permissible for that action to become a universal law that everyone would follow, then it is a moral act. If you are thinking about telling a lie, consider what would happen if everyone lied. The effects on society would be disastrous because any kind of trust would break down. This standard is universability.

An action is only permissible if the maxim underlying it can be universalized so that everyone would act the same way without producing catastrophic results. As I said, it’s a strict interpretation of philosophy.

Another, somewhat surprising, principle is to treat humans as ends and never as means. This means exactly

what it sounds like it means, which is that humans should not be used as means for accomplishing a goal but should be seen as a goal, an end in and of themselves. As a moral guide, this can be loosely interpreted to mean that people should not use other people and should be treated as an equally valuable individual.

This position is surprisingly humanistic because of the racism and sexism that Kant believed in and wrote about. The caveat applied to this is his distinction between “rational” beings and “irrational” beings. In his conception of rationality as a well-to do white man in the 18th-century, it is safe for us to assume that his rational beings are white men. It is important to hold this distinction in mind when considering Kant and his legacy. While I and others believe that Kantian ethics can be used by people who are decidedly not racist and sexist and do not share Kant’s beliefs on these matters, it is important to remember and understand that the man writing these moral theories did not believe that they applied to most people.

Most thought experiments concerning Kant illustrate the strictness of his deontological ethics. A famous one goes like this: imagine that a murderer comes to your door.

They inform you that they are here to murder your mother

“Are you using the murderer as a means to an end, i.e. your mother’s survival? No, your mother must be murdered if you are to live faithfully by Kantian ethics.” and want to know if she is home. You know that she is out of sight in the house. If you tell the murderer that she is not home, he will have no way to verify this — he is a trusting murderer who will take you at your word— and will leave. What do you do? According to deontology and Kantian ethics, there is only one thing to do. You must tell the murderer that your mother is inside. Whether he then kills her or not, or whether, more garishly, you wanted him to kill her, does not matter. What matters is that you

consider whether it would be good for society if everyone lied. Where would the trust go? Next time the murderer visits, he may not take you at face value because in this new world no one can trust one another. Are you using the murderer as a means to end, i.e. your mother’s survival? No, your mother must be murdered if you are to live faithfully

by Kantian ethics.

Obviously, the ethical framework is open to criticisms about the results of actions. Whether a maxim can be universalized is open to debate. For instance, one who believes that the results of an action are what determine its morality would find it impossible to universalize a maxim.

This also leads to the speculation that some have made that the universalization justification is consequentialist, as it argues that an act is judged by the effect that it would have on everyone if everyone did it.

If you would like to introduce these strict ethics into your life, be warned that it could result in your telling a very polite murderer where their next victim will be. Also be aware that you might damn all of society to follow your lead. Next time, we will give you an ethics that is hopefully a little easier to apply to your life, virtue ethics.

Teaching AI to solve ethno-religious conflict Shruti Shukla explores the moral issues behind a recent study that proposes using artificial intelligence simulations to solve religious and ethnic conflicts.

A group of researchers has attempted to create a psychologically realistic artificial intelligence (AI) that can simulate religious and ethnic conflicts in order to predict them. Drawing on the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the 2002 Gujarat riots in India as their main models, the team proposes that they can study the emergence and escalation of xenophobic tendencies and anxieties in society by utilizing AI to study and predict future conflicts. The motivation behind the undertaking of this project can be found in the history of violence, death, and destruction resulting from ethno-religious conflicts and the desire to prevent these.

The study is grounded in psychology. The researchers seek to mirror situations of inter-group conflicts to understand and analyse the reasons for the escalation of xenophobic anxieties. By basing its argument in human psychology as the ground for the cultivation of religion and culture, the study focuses on the functioning of individual and collective psyches in situations that threatens their different sets of ideals, principles, and beliefs. Justin Lane of Oxford University, who led the team of researchers, said, “ultimately, to use AI to study religion or culture, we have to look at modelling human psychology because our psychology is the foundation for religion and culture, so the root causes of things like religious violence rest in how our minds process the information that our world presents it.”

The major findings of the study focus on groups’ core beliefs and what happens when they are challenged on these. The authors write that people are generally peaceful even during times of external stress. However, when people are consistently challenged on their “core beliefs,” they become more prone to violent conflict. However, this increase is only by about 20 percent according to the simulation. The researchers claim that the risk increases when the different groups are similarly-sized and they encounter each other more often, arguing that changing the perception between different groups away from seeing one another as threats is the key to discouraging violence.

According to the BBC, Norway and Slovakia are already considering the use of this technology in helping them to resettle Muslim refugees.

Despite this technology’s advanced simulations and modelling, one has to consider that the psyches of humans along with the internalized and taught values of religion or culture are social, cultural, and political constructs. The idea that these conflicts are a part of human psychology that can be tinkered with is rather appealing. It seems to promise a utopia in a world that has witnessed wars and riots due to xenophobic tendencies and ethno-religious conflicts. AI trained with the human psyche, mimicking

16 VOL. XXV, ISSUE 4

ethno-religious conflicts in artificial societies to protect the world from the humans that inhabit it seems to be an idea of radical, innovative, and transcendent potential.

However, one needs to understand and question whether evil or conflict is a constructed or a fundamental element of human nature. The fact that every human being is essentially different in their processing and encounter with the social structures of society. Even if the experiment was run millions of times with millions of different conditions and situations that could trigger this groupanxiety, it would be impossible to include every variable.

Concerns about ever-advancing AI should also be included in discussions about this technology. Stephen Hawking once said, “once humans develop full AI, it will take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate.” The process of creating psychologically realistic AI needs to tackle the seemingly-dystopian anxieties of the possibility of a world run by AI through a process of more ethical implementations of the systems. The idea of AI existing in the world, imbued with a sense of morality and ethics is not only utopian but impossible at the very core. The subject of morality and ethical responsibility, a common thread connecting philosophers and thinkers for centuries does not have the potential for objectivity in its existence in the subjective foundations of humans.

While arguments and debates have emerged supporting the utopian dream, a strain of counter-arguments has also emerged that focuses on the disadvantages of this dream turning into a dystopian reality.

In the end, one needs to question whether creating artificial intelligence is the only solution to ethno-religious conflicts or if people need to strike at the very root of such conflicts, in the ideological apparatuses shaping the psyches of people, facilitating the causes for said conflicts and functioning on a bias towards its project of assimilation and elimination. The social and political reasons for conflict and its place in human society need to be examined, and whether it could ever be eliminated by just understanding psychology. William Golding considered this question after World War Two. “Before the Second World War, I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society.

But after the war I did not.... I must say that anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.” Whether Golding’s pessimism about the ability of society to improve is correct or not, the use and ability of a psychologically intelligent AI to produce that change requires greater consideration.

The 2018 Presidential election saw the lowest turnout of voters than ever before at 43.87% of the electorate.

President Higgins was re-elected, coming at little shock after polling high continuously throughout the campaign.

At the same time, almost discreetly, the referendum on blasphemy was voted to be repealed at 64.85% voting yes.

No one has ever been prosecuted for blasphemy and so, the vote had low stakes as it was and people likely saw their vote as a symbolic statement, if they did end up voting at all.

Why such a low count, when 64% of the electorate were out to vote mere months ago? What’s more, Irish people have actually seemed more politically motivated since the referendum, rather than less so. The Stand for Truth protest against the Pope’s visit had 5,000 attendees, and Take Back the City had 10,000 out demanding

because it was “time for change”. Each candidate had their own side-scandal of the election - from Liadh Ni Riada claiming to earn a “living wage”, to Sean Gallagher trying to turn seven years as a landlord into valiant heroism for his community. Nonetheless, Irish people could make out who understood the limits of the role, and who was there to satisfy a personal need for attention.

Perhaps, if the election were treated less like an entertainment spectacle, we may have been better off.

Why were the candidates permitted to drag one another in RTE studios? Why was unbridled and disproportionate attention given to Peter Casey’s prejudiced comments against Travellers and people on social welfare? The Irish media are stunned at the 18% leap Casey made in the final result, as if they weren’t giving his statements attention above everything else.

The Literary Alpaca

PUZZLES The Literary Alpaca 1

2 3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10

11

12

13 14

15

Across

Down

3. This town has cast a spell on many a man.

1. United Nations day of “_____” celebrated on the 20th

8. It’s just too simple not to believe it’s true.

November.

10. Fruit found in stockings of the poor in 12th-century France.

2. Democratic candidate that lost the senate seat in Texas.

11. Publication blamed for TCDSU debt.

4. Billboard’s Women of the Year 2018.

14. This hideous man is only available for brief interviews.

5. Annual event predominantly hosted in the Royal Albert Hall.

15. University ranked number one in the subject of agricultural

6. This event marks the day with the shortest period of daylight.

science.

7. The author of The Nutcracker.

9. Youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress.

12. Most recent inductee to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

13. This form of public entertainment originated in Britain but takes its name from the greek word meaning “imitator of all”.

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EDITORIAL Editorial From The New York Times and CNN, to the BBC, The Guardian and the South China Morning Post, the Cork rape trial has gained international notoriety and, along with it, widespread condemnation of the comments used by defence barrister Elizabeth O’Connell SC. In her closing argument, O’Connell stated asked “does the evidence outrule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.”

It is not difficult to understand how the legal necessity of establishing whether consent was given often leads complainants to feel like they are the ones on trial, rather than the alleged perpetrator. As is the case with all juries, it is impossible to know whether, or to what degree, weight was attached to arguments over the complainant’s clothing.

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER TEAM The law, however, should require judges to direct a jury not to consider such comments.

It is not an argument at all to suggest that a complainant placed themselves in a vulnerable position, or wished rape or sexual assault upon themselves, by wearing any particular article of clothing, and that consent could reasonably and naturally follow. It would further be a feat of legal gymnastics to claim that the ability to consent to a sexual act could be assigned to an inanimate article of clothing. Clothing cannot, and should not, be considered a communicable medium when it comes to sex and consent.

It is, instead, a legal tactic used to denigrate and discredit a victim’s character, to convince the court that they not only gave consent, but that they did so from the moment they had put their clothes on; that there was no circumstance under which they would ever have refused

to give consent. All of this is somehow to be implied from the very fabric of the victim’s clothes and their desire to socialise.

Such a specious argument is easily rebuttable, and an innocent accused, already at a significant legal advantage, would be better served by appealing to the truth and hard law. Any precedent which establishes clothing as an element of giving consent undermines the autonomy of the individual and the need for a conscious and clear indication of their willingness to participate in sexual activity. It does so to the detriment of all victims.

A call by the Law Reform Commission for public input on the reform of rape law in relation to the knowledge and belief of consent ended on 26th October 2018. A proposal for reform which does not address these comments, made so frequently in rape trials, would be incomplete.

DEPUTY EDITOR Dylan O’Neill ART AND DESIGN EDITOR Fiachra Johnston NEWS EDITOR Gavin Tracey INTERNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR Úna Sinnott SU AFFAIRS EDITOR Katia Gillen HIGHER EDUCATION EDITOR Brian Treacy

Talleyrand Listen up peasants, whilst your superior Talley, shares with you the true spirit of Christmas. Get it?

It’s that time of year again boys and girls! No, I’m not talking about a presidential by-election, I’m talking about a good-old fashioned panto. And what could be better than a panto? Why an SU panto of course. It’s perfect when you think about it, both are farcical affairs that are only relevant for a short amount of time in the year, the audience hurls abuse that those involved and it’s received with a lukewarm reception at best. But release your worries of impending failures in the RDS, as Talley reviews the latest iteration of the tale of the SU sabbats in It’s A Not So Wonderful Life.

Our story is set, as most pantomimes are, in the cold post-apocalyptic wasteland, known as the Students’ Union Corridor, where the souls of our cast are trapped behind the newly paint white walls, that are apparently a big deal.

Here, we meet our ensemble of miserable and tormented sabbatical officers.

The evil Baron Barry sits high in his tower, looking down on the people of UCD, ignoring their cries over the living conditions in the kingdom. With him, as always, is his faithful and trusted press officer, narrator, advisor O.Pope, who stands over him and warns him of approaching media personnel and whether he’s about to break confidentiality agreements. Together, they are determined to prevent history from repeating itself, by quashing all forms of a resistance that lead to the downfall of his predecessor.

A resistance that he may or may not have constructed, it depends on whose script you read.

But it’s not just the masses of students under the Baron’s tyrannical rule. Residing in the bowels of the fortress is C+C Officer and comic relief character, Tiny Tom “Lovelorn” Monaghan. Here the SU pays homage to pop culture references such as The Good Place, where Monaghan seems to be in his own personal “Bad Place”,

EDITOR Brían Donnelly

FEATURES EDITOR Doireann de Courcy Mac Donnell being surrounded by boxes of lube and not being able to use any of it, because he “works for a Students’ Union, I’m not getting the ride like.” To add further insult to humility, the panto pays its respects to its Greek origins by placing Monaghan in his own trial of Sisyphus, updating the SU website for eternity, all to no avail. Now call Talley a sadist, but seeing someone do the same thing over and over again until insanity seeps in, is side-splitting entertainment.

Production was halted in the run-up to the show last week, when cast member and Education Officer Stephen Crosby faced an identity crisis. Crosby was found pacing his dressing room repeating, almost nonsensically “Am I the Education Officer?” Rumours spread about tensions between Crosby and the production team, when the decision was made to bring back former Education Officer and Ghost of SUs Past, Bobby Sweeney as a cameo appearance for the show. Sweeney has been giving interviews recently about the self-described “golden years” and there are rumours that the Union are planning on bringing him back as a recurring character. Crosby has yet to address the rumours.

This tale was not solely one of woe though, there were some “woke” moments too. Every panto needs a shining heroine to carry the plot, and oh boy, does the Welfairy Melissa Plunkett carry the others. Like many a leading lady, her contribution to the plot may be overshadowed by the buffoonery onstage, but her contributions to the production have not gone unnoticed. Despite being listed as a supporting character, Melissa has been a crowd favourite and when asked by other cast members, if she felt that she took attention from their stage time, she replied “I ain’t stopping you dude.”

Every panto needs a Dame, and Graduate Officer Niall Torris, lets his hair down with the personification of Gloria Wholes. Donning a traditional, understated evening gown and plastering on enough makeup to make Dame Edna blush, Torris has been lip-syncing disco hits on his radio

show every week. Adding to the mystery of the relevance of his role in the ensemble, Talley wonders whether, when they revise the book for the show, his character be left on the cutting room floor.

This year, the SU tried their darndest to get more audience members than their rivals, TCDSU. This competition shows in the extravagant sets that UCDSUs budget have allowed them to acquire. TCD, in a lastditch effort on damage control, blamed their union-funded publication The University Times on running them into so much debt. Fans were left sceptical and aware that when a union blames a publication for their losses, there is usually more to the story.

In summation, UCDSU’s It’s A Not So Wonderful Life left the students feeling even more bleak about their current situation, right up until the final butchered notes of the ensemble’s rendition Everybody Hurts.

COMMENT EDITOR Nathan Young AGRICULTURE & RURAL AFFAIRS EDITOR Dáire Brady PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION EDITOR William Higgins LAW & POLITICS EDITOR Laurence Childs BUSINESS & CAREERS EDITOR Ciarán Busby SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Emmet Feerick DEPUTY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Séan Mooney EARARTHOIR GAEILGE Hugh Mac Giolla Chearra SPORTS EDITOR Rory Clarke DEPUTY SPORTS EDITOR Colmán Stanley CHIEF OF PHOTOGRAPHY Alex Fagan DEPUTY PHOTOGRAPHER Conor Cosgrove CHIEF OF ILLUSTRATIONS Freya Williams

Letters to the Editor

CHIEF OF VIDEOGRAPHY Orla Keaveney COLUMNISTS Molly Greenough Matthew Tannam-Elgie Veronica Rozynek CONTRIBUTORS Andrea Andres Shivani Shukla David O’Sullivan Claudia Dalby Séamus Mc Auliffe Brendan Byrne Evelyn Elias James Donaghey Leanne Durkan Jack Lynch Aoibhs Magills Hannah Bryson Shruti Shukla Eoin Leeson Christine Coffey Ciarán Crowther

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Letters, corrections, and clarifications pertaining to articles published in this newspaper and online are welcomed and encuraged.

Letters should be addressed to: The Editor, University Observer, UCD Student Centre, Belfield, Diublin 4 Correspondence may also be sent to editor @universityobserver.ie

18 VOL. XXV, ISSUE 4

SPORT

Head-to-Head

Should all UCD clubs be funded equally?

At present the Athletics Union Council in UCD allocates funding based on a number of factors, including competitiveness and size. Should this system be changed, with all clubs allocated equal funding? Rory Clarke changed, argues in favour, while Colman Stanley maintains that the current system should be perpetuated.

YES

NO

Rory Clarke

Colman Stanley

The funding of sports clubs in UCD is a vicious circle, which should be perpetuated no longer. Currently the clubs with the largest memberships, who compete in the most competitions, are allocated the largest grants from UCD through the Athletics Union Council (AUC). The allocation of sports funding in proportion to members is, on the surface at least, a reasonably fair and logical system. However viewed in light of the special environment that is a 3rd level institution in Ireland, it does not stand up. University is designed to spread different ideas and promote heterogeneity, rather than simply maintain the status quo.

The current prioritisation of competition-oriented teams is demonstrated by the policy of the AUC to subsidise travel costs for competitive matches/intervarsities but not for those ‘outdoor pursuits’ clubs who, by necessity have to travel every single week to train/play. This means trips for purposes of recreation is not deemed valid for funding by the AUC. Clubs like mountaineering and windsurfing who fundamentally rely on being outside, are inherently disadvantaged by the current system, introduced in 2017.

There is clear dichotomy between those clubs which are prioritised by the AUC. According to a report published by The College Tribune in 2017/2018 academic year, the men’s rugby club received grants to the tune of €85,600 (or 22% of the overall grant amount). Conversely seven clubs received less than €1,000. In fact the inaccessibility of UCD funding for many small clubs is such that 20% of clubs did not even attempt to make a grant application, knowing they would likely be refused.

Those clubs who received the largest grants from the AUC are often sponsored by wealthy external parties, who contribute massively to the day-to-day running costs of the club. The rugby club for example is sponsored by national companies such as AIB and Crowe Accountancy. This is a luxury that the smaller clubs could only dream of.

The opposition will argue that each person is worth the same, regardless of their choice of sport and thus clubs should be funded according to their membership. Notwithstanding the fact that I don’t agree with this, due to the special environment of UCD and our collegiate duty to promote smaller sports, this isn’t even the case. Last year, UCD Badminton Club received €3,231.50 with a membership of 241. This equates to approx. €13.35 per person. Conversely, UCD Rugby Club’s grant amounted to approx €138 per person, with 620 members. Are rugby players really 10 times better than badminton players?

These clubs are already exercising their numerical advantages with increased revenue from memberships and sponsors, relative to those smaller clubs they simply don’t need the exorbitant AUC grants. As the old saying goes: there is more to college than academics. In sporting terms: there is more to sport than winning, and the AUC should recognise this by giving smaller clubs an equal platform, at least to begin with, to spread their sporting message.

Generally when debating you have to think like the other side. What will be their strongest points? How do I counter them? For this particular motion I genuinely cannot think of any reasonable argument in favour of equal funding to all UCD sports clubs. Could the allocation of funding be improved? Perhaps, but that is not what is being argued. What is being argued is that sepak takraw should be allocated the same funds as rugby.

The sympathetic cause of the small sports club should hold no weight over pragmatism and common sense. If you think that is being harsh, then I think you need some perspective. They are, after all, just sports clubs, not minority groups. Furthermore, the college has never claimed to be an institute where all the wealth is spread equally, regardless of circumstance. It does however, portray itself as an institute of global stature and prestige, and one that will work to further itself in those areas. That work does not include forsaking clubs such as cycling, GAA, or rugby, so that small clubs can feel more important.

According to the College Tribune, the rugby club are allocated with €85,600, over 22% of the entire allocated funds, and the highest amount of any club. This would mean that if the wealth was distributed evenly, then each club would receive roughly €7,842. You have to ask what would smaller clubs (any of the eight martial arts clubs, pool and snooker, handball, trampoline, caving and potholing etc.) do with this all this money? Many of these smaller clubs do not require expensive equipment, and most already have whatever essential equipment is needed. They could be afforded the luxury of travel expenses to meets and competitions, and still have plenty of money left over. You also have to ask the question, what would the rugby club do with this lack of funding? A club boasting some of the best young talent in one of the country’s most popular sports. It also hosts a hugely popular tag rugby program, one of the best sports for male and female co-participation. The campus recently co-hosted the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup. You can forget about this incredible success were their funding to be cut. The same can also be said for other popular and prestigious clubs such as cycling, rowing, and GAA, and hockey.

Sport also provides entertainment, the more popular a sport, generally the more entertainment it brings. UCD has a duty to fans of these well funded sports, so they can see elite quality athletes performing at their best. Ladies hockey, who receive the second most funding, are a good example of this. During the summer our international team brought joy to the nation when they reached the World Cup Final. UCD played its part in this, with it being home to a handful of players, including captain Katie Mullan, and the national stadium, to which UCD Sport is providing substantial funding for its upgrade.

Lastly, health benefits, both mental and physical, cannot be ignored. These more popular and accessible clubs provide these benefits, and need larger funding to continue to do so as best they can.

REBUTTAL

REBUTTAL

For a large portion of the opposition’s argument, he fails to address the motion we are meant to be arguing. As I clearly reiterated, the motion is not ‘should the distribution of AUC grants be changed?’, the motion is purely discussing whether all clubs should have equal funding.

The opposition also states that “the opposition (myself) will argue that each person is worth the same, regardless of their choice of sport and thus clubs should be funded according to their membership.” As you can see from my argument I do not agree with this sentiment. I acknowledge that some sports are just better, and provide better services to the college and its students, and that funding should reflect this. The external sponsorship the rugby club receives also reflects this, and they should not be punished, by having their AUC grants cut, because they have successfully acquired this external funding.

The opposition argues that smaller clubs do not have an equal platform ‘to spread their message’. All of the sports clubs are allowed a seat at the sports expo at Freshers Week. Making posters and advertising through social media costs very little. Some clubs do not have the same popularity or numbers, not because they can’t spread their message, but because people are just not as interested in participating in them. And there is nothing wrong with being a small club.

They are tight knit and passionate communities who provide excellent services and enjoyment to their members.

“Could the allocation of funding be improved? Perhaps”.

The opposition states confidently that this is not the issue at stake, but to put it bluntly - it is. The argument is to change the funding with the aim of bringing about a more positive outcome - the definition of improvement. The example of sepak takraw and rugby is just that, an example, albeit an illustrative one.

As noted, not all clubs will need equal funding. I am not proposing that money should be left to sit idle in bank accounts or be spent wildly. Financial decisions shall of course still be overseen by senior treasurers, so there is no question of clubs spending simply because they have money to burn. That is not to say that they should not have the right of first refusal. That is not to say that they should not have their most fundamental costs covered without undue stress being placed on them.

“Global status and prestige” comes from an attitude of generosity and open-mindedness, promoting the activities of all, rather than an exclusive few.

It has been pointed out, truly, that UCD Rugby club boasts many of the country’s most promising talents. However, the follow-on conclusion, that this would be impossible without disproportionate grants, is a fallacy. Rugby on campus is propped up by the nation’s most successful professional club, Leinster. Those who are good enough shall continue to be good enough, although potentially in a provincial rather than collegiate set-up.

Lastly, it is incredibly insulting to insinuate that the only sports that have any health benefits are those largest and most popular across the country.

Colman Stanley

Rory Clarke

Sports shorts Eoin Leeson

FAI & IFA announce joint Euros bid The football associations of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have announced a joint bid to host the u21 European Championships in 2023.

Although it’s the first time the two bodies have worked together on a bid, they have teamed up in the past to develop 3rd Level Football and Walking Football on the island. Representatives from the associations have said the only reason it hasn’t happened sooner was because of a lack of suitable facilities.

The mere mention of the word ‘border’ sparks debates far and wide at the moment, but if our nation’s leaders take a look at the beaming faces of the two association’s chief executives standing together, it might just make them consider that teamwork may indeed make the dream work.

GAA Stars & World War I 1918 marks the centenary anniversary of the end of World War I and all those who died fighting in the conflict – including some of Ireland’s brightest GAA stars.

Antrim’s William Manning was one of these. His promising career was cut short in 1916 when he enlisted for the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. This was despite the GAA’s ban on their members being part of the Crown force. It seems Manning was not only a talented footballer but a formidable soldier too. He was promoted to the rank of Lance Sargent before unfortunately meeting his end in 1918.

Interestingly, the players who survived were a lot less celebrated. Given the GAA’s prominence in the events of Easter 1916 and the ensuing War of Independence, sweeping the role of their members in helping the British under the rug was just fine with them.

Pushy parenting these days, eh?

Bohs get Bob Marley blues:

A recent u8 game in Wales saw one parent take the expression ‘pushy parenting’ a tad too literally.

As an opposing attacker makes a menacing run towards his son’s goal, a young boy’s father fixes the issue of his son having his back turned by taking matters into his own hands. He pushes his son to the ground resulting in him blocking the shot on goal. Unfortunately, even with his dad’s help, he can’t quite palm it far enough away to avoid the rebound being tapped in. The exasperated dad throws his hands into the air as the ball hits the back of the net and the video has now been viewed over 27 million times.

I guess we all just want our kids to succeed!

Bohemian’s new away jersey caused quite a storm among football fans with orders for it arriving in from countries across 5 different continents in recent weeks.

Why? Well, it had Bob Marley’s face on it. The musical icon’s son even described it as “the dopest shirt I’ve ever seen”.

Unfortunately neither he, nor anyone else, will be able to get their hands on one any longer. Bohemians have been forced to remove Marley’s face from the shirt due to licensing issues, to be replaced by a clenched fist (signalling unity).

The shirt had originally been commissioned to pay tribute to the fact that Marley’s last outdoor concert was at Bohemian’s stadium, Dalymount Park, in 1980.

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SPORT FIFA’s latest reforms are selling the spirit of the game With the latest reformatting of the Club World Cup just one of the financially lucrative projects in FIFA’s pipeline, Christine Coffey questions the body’s priorities.

Roberto Carlos, owner of one of the most iconic left boots in footballing history and one of the most exciting full-backs the world has ever seen, recently claimed “I know firsthand how important international competitions like the FIFA Club World Cup are to both players and fans”. The agenda of FIFA’s most recent summit included a proposal for change in the structure of the FIFA Club World Cup, a competition that never seems deserving of the ‘World Champion’ title the winners receive. Money seems to be the central focus of these new developments, no matter what Carlos, nor any famous ex-pro turned FIFA ambassador, says about it.

This year’s competition, which will be played off over the course of 10 days in December in the United Arab Emirates, will follow the current format and will feature the six champions from each of the continents, as well as the host club Al Ain FC. The proposed changes, incentivised by a lucrative investment should more of Europe’s topflight clubs be included, would not be implemented until at least after 2024, as the international and club footballing calendars have already been laid out until that year and major changes to this would be unlikely. Some propositions included a 24-team competition held in mid-June, but with national team competitions and player welfare and recovery before pre-season to be considered, it’s difficult to see how that could be included.

Some clubs were initially reluctant to even entertain the idea of extra games, but, in the end money speaks.

Some La Liga clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona in particular, threw their support behind the possibility of new developments after hearing about the potential revenue, with more than 100 million pounds being promised to each participating club (those figures not including prize money and bonuses). These are the same Spanish teams looking to organise ‘home’ league fixtures in the United States, showing great ambition in terms of expanding a global brand and little regard to the Spanish football faithful.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin’s scathing comments before FIFA’s most recent summit in Rwanda encapsulated the opinion of many on the proposals: “I cannot accept that some people… who are blinded by the pursuit of profit are considering to sell the soul of football tournaments to nebulous private funds”.

Despite only being an official annual fixture since 2005, the FIFA Club World Cup has a well-established reputation in its short history. South Americans teams regard it with strong aversion and a characteristic chip on their shoulder because of the manner in which intercontinental club games proceeded before FIFA stepped in. European teams tend to win the competition on a yearly basis at little more

than a jog, and therefore the competition is viewed as an extra fixture top-flight teams can ill-afford in an already demanding season calendar. The teams they lay out are similar to a Chelsea or Manchester City match day squad for the third round of the FA Cup. It lacks the romance, excitement and history of midweek Champions League matches in the footballing cauldrons of European giants or of clubs on fairy-tale runs of form.

Other continents weren’t invited to participate in the intercontinental club competitions that preceded the FIFA Club World Cup. These years of exclusion hindered the development of footballing culture and competitive club football in these regions, going some way to explain their recent struggles in this competition. Their only exposure to intercontinental football came in the form of competitions with the national team, and accordingly, the ‘real’ World Cup and the honour of representing one’s country, are held in much higher regard than the club edition.

Only on four occasions has the competition been won by a south American club, with these being the only successes for a non-European side. Incidentally, only three clubs from outside South America and Europe have made it to the final. There has always been a gulf between Europe and South America, and all the other continents in terms of the level of club competitions. This gap is only going to grow, with the vast disparity in financial investment across the world.

The new formats are being advertised as a way to bring more money into the continents that are struggling and to promote the game, but it is hard to see much of the money invested in the competition being fed into the game at grassroots level. The majority will be needed to guarantee the participation of the ‘top of the bill’ clubs, the headline grabbers that are needed to turn this sporting competition into a profitable business venture. Any views that these developments might be in the interest of the global development of the game are greatly undermined by the relatively recent exposure of the federation’s deeprooted corruption, an albatross around their neck that they haven’t been able to shake.

If you were to stand outside 229, rue Saint-Honoré in Paris today, you’d find a high-end boutique, not what you’d expect from the building where FIFA was founded. However, taking recent events into account and the reputation FIFA has developed as a result, it’s not difficult to see the similarities between two profit-focused businesses. Even though the international federation now finds itself based in Zurich, you wonder how far FIFA have come from that upmarket Parisian avenue.

Running the Beer Mile Ciarán Crowther tracks the rise of athletics newest phenomen, the Beer Mile.

Running is all about pushing yourself to the limit. Runners are always trying to improve their personal bests and run faster than they ever have before. To do this at a high level involves certain lifestyle choices which help to maximise performance, such as nutrition and sleep, as well as training hard and in the correct manner. Another vital component of an athlete’s lifestyle is their hydration. This aspect of training is sometimes overlooked but is just as important a component as the rest. Hydrating properly in the build-up to training and races is crucial for an athlete looking to maximise their performance and indeed can be even more important for athletes trying to compete in gruelling events like the marathon, ultra marathon or Ironman triathlons.

Attempting to run fast over any distance while actively dehydrating your body would typically be seen as a crazy thing to do, but this is exactly what participants in the beer mile do.

What started initially as a joke over a drink among seven Canadian runners in 1989 (one of whom, Graham Hood, went on to represent Canada in the 1500m at two consecutive Summer Olympic Games in 1992 and 1996)

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quickly took off in the United States of America and Canada and eventually the rest of the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the beer mile has always thrived on college campuses and this has allowed it to become a semi-serious event today. Indeed, there is an Annual Irish Beer Mile Championship which is now in its sixth year. However don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard anything about it.

Any regular or annual beer mile event tends to be discreet in organising a date, time and location due to the laws in place around drinking alcohol in public.

The official rules of the beer mile are quite simple: each runner has to run 4 laps (or 1609m, to be exact), drinking one 12 ounce can or bottle of beer before each lap. Each bottle or can of beer must be at least 5% ABV. Additionally, reinforcing the fact that it is just as important to be able to hold your drink as it is to be able to run a good mile, if any participant vomits at any point during the beer mile, there is a penalty lap enforced. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, whether you consider yourself a good drinker, a good runner or both!

Someone who has proved he has both of the

aforementioned attributes is the Canadian Corey Bellemore, the current world record holder for the beer mile. His name has lately become synonymous with the beer mile.

Bellemore’s world record stands at 4:33.60 (Bellemore ran 4:24 at the 2018 Beer Mile World Classic but was disqualified because he did not completely finish all of his beers), and when you consider that his total chugging time for his four twelve-ounce beers is approximately 30 seconds, this is an impressive achievement. The Canadian is also a professional athlete signed with Adidas and ran a 3:57.42 mile in Cork during the summer this year, a new personal best.

Bellemore is proof positive of how the beer mile has taken off to become a serious and competitive sporting endeavour, particularly in the US and Canada. In fact, Bellemore’s world record was set during a halftime entertainment show in a professional football match in California between the San Francisco Deltas and Jacksonville Armada. In 2015, the Beer Mile World Classic was the most-viewed race of the year. This is even more impressive considering the IAAF World Athletics

Championships, featuring the biggest stars of the sport, took place in Beijing, China in the same year.

Despite the widespread success of the beer mile as a quasi-sport, any associated health benefits are a debatable grey area. Anybody that has spoken about their experience running the beer mile emphasises how awful it makes the body feel. Simultaneously challenging the strength of both stomach and legs, a beer miler has to concentrate on not vomiting as well as running the classic distance as fast as they can. There is some scientific research which suggests that the relief of anxiety and buzz which one can get from beer could adequately sustain the ‘runner’s high’ you get from running if the beer is consumed shortly afterwards, but in truth, beer offers little as a recovery drink. Beer does contain complex B vitamins and antioxidants, but the dehydrating effect of beer due to its alcohol content clearly outweighs the benefits which any small nutritional aspects may offer. As much as this may disappoint any students enjoying the drinking culture of the college lifestyle, if you’re thinking of trying a new drinking game, well, the beer mile beckons…