VOLUME xViI ISSUE 3
Ne quid false dicere audeat ne quid veri non audeat
19th October 2010
IRELAND’S AWARD-WINNING STUDENT NEWSPAPER
FEATURES
COMMENT
SCIENCE
Attitudes to Sex: How Men and Women are Different in our Eyes
Five years after the Ferns Report, has anything really changed?
The truth behind forensics. Can we really trust CSI in court?
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UCD student’s text service wins web award Bridget Fitzsimons Editor
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UCD student has been awarded an Irish Web Award for his work relating to contraception. Chris Rooney, a Business and Law student, won the award for Most Innovative Website along with his friend Liam Ryan, who is a Trinity student. Rooney and Ryan’s website, www.safetext.ie, sends women a daily reminder to take the contraceptive pill. The website has a personalised diary for each user, which notes the days and times at which reminders will be sent out. Reminders are also sent on the week that the woman is not taking the pill, to remind her to get a new pack for her latest cycle. Speaking to The University Observer, Rooney expressed surprise at the award, saying that he and Ryan are “over the moon” and that “we weren’t really expecting it, because we’ve only been set up about a month now, but it was amazing to get it”. He also said that winning the award “reaffirms in our minds that there is a need for the service”. Safetext beat far more established sites, such as the music festival Oxegen, to win the award, but Rooney says that the pair have always been confident about their idea. He explained that he and Ryan “had a chat with the people who were in our category afterward and they saw the potential of it, so I think that could be as good a reason as any as to why we won”. While sign-ups to the website have been modest, Rooney is confident that the award will have a positive effect on the success of
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Cigarette company conduct surveys outside Student Bar Amy Bracken & Kieran McCarthy
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tudents attending the Student Bar have reported seeing two people outside the bar selling cigarettes and asking students to participate in a survey on which cigarette brand they smoked. Speaking to The University Observer, students claimed that PJ Carroll and Company Ltd, a supplier of cigarettes to the bar, were conducting research for their company. Manager of the bar, Declan Hyland, explained: “They don’t approach people, they have no branding on their clothing, and it’s up to people to approach themselves. It’s on for a six-week trial basis where they gather information on a number of pubs around Dublin and we were one of the pubs asked to participate.” Hyland informed The University Observer that the sellers inhabit the smoking area twice a week and will be do so for six weeks. UCD SU President Paul Lynam said of the matter: “There were people from Carroll’s who were in the smoking area. They couldn’t approach students and if students approached them, they could ask them a question.” Lynam contradicted Hyland’s claim that the sellers will be there on a fortnightly basis for six weeks: “We agreed that they could only do it on one occasion and we don’t want it to happen again. It won’t happen again.” On the matter of whether or not a survey was being conducted, Lynam said: “They weren’t getting surveyed per se. It wasn’t random sampling. They had to go up and volunteer the information themselves.” The University Observer spoke to a rep-
Members of UCD SVP hold a bake sale for the charity in UCD Student Centre.
resentative of PJ Carroll and Company Ltd who said of the matter: “It wasn’t a survey. It was kind of direct selling. They wouldn’t have been carrying out a survey.” When informed that students were asked to complete a survey upon purchasing cigarettes from the sellers, the representative replied that they were “surprised to
hear that”. The representative denied any knowledge of a survey or of research being conducted by the company. However, Hyland described the research: “Basically the cigarettes company that supplies cigarettes to the student club are doing research on their brand.”
A spokesperson from the Office of Tobacco Control said: “Anyone selling tobacco has to be registered and they have to display their registration details on their closed containers and vending machines.” It is the understanding of The University Observer that the sellers were not wearing any form of branding.
de Brún defends four-star resort for class rep training Sarah Doran
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CDSU Campaigns and Communications Vice-President Pat de Brún has defended the choice of a four star resort hotel as the location for this year’s class rep training weekend, at a cost of €11,000 in student contributed funding. Around 135 UCD students stayed at the Wolseley Holiday Lodges, located on the grounds of the luxury four star Mount Wolseley Hotel, Spa and Country Club in Tullow, Co Carlow. The location of the training weekend, which was paid for out of the UCDSU Campaigns and Communications budget, was kept secret until the journey got underway. De Brún said: “Over the summer I spent
a lot of time contacting different possible locations to see what ones had the proper conference facilities and the housing. They [the Mount Wolseley] just turned out to be the best value for money, so I went with them.” De Brún insisted that the location “really was the cheapest. We actually have a significant saving based on the last good few years of class rep training.” The University Observer understands that a €4,000 saving was made when compared with the €15,000 training weekend held in Blessington, Co Wicklow in 2009. De Brún neither confirmed nor denied the allegation that class reps were instructed to refrain from discussing or publishing photos of the training weekend on Facebook. “I think it may have been said to them. I didn’t say it myself,” he stated. He acknowledged that there had been controversy in previous years with regards
Lodges on the site of the four star Mount Wolseley were the location for this year’s class rep training.
to photos taken during the weekend which were subsequently published on Facebook. “That’s the kind of thing that we want to avoid,” de Brún said. “We want people to know that this was a proper training weekend, that it wasn’t just
a piss-up as some people try to convey it as and we really did put a lot of work into that and we just didn’t want to jeopardise it,” he stated. De Brún said that the reason the weekend is spent off-campus is that it “creates a better
sense of bonding between the reps which is important for an effective council”. He expressed his belief that the weekend away ensured “a captive audience” for the training programme, stating that it would be “a lot more difficult to keep people there at every module, in attendance” if training were conducted on-campus. This year, the training modules offered to class reps dealt with topics including academic issues and class parties. Reps also took part in modules regarding the benefits of social media, and were encouraged to set up Facebook pages for their classes. De Brún expressed satisfaction at the weekends’ activities: “I was over the moon with it to be honest. It was a real sigh of relief at the end because I feel we really did get the results that we wanted from it.”