University Times Volume 2 Issue 3

The Left Bloc Rises An investigative feature on the left-wing groups redefining student politics page 8

The Sex and Sexuality Issue Gay Marriage David Norris The Game Soccer Colours ends in draw Hugh Clinch reports p16

The University Times Irish Student Newspaper of the Year TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2010

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Ó Broin denies saying USI would accept fees Ronan Costello News Editor Union of Students in Ireland Deputy President Cónán Ó Broin has denied saying that the organisation would accept fees if the government agreed to reform the grant system. Ó Broin was forced to deny making this statement when Max Sullivan, creator of the “National Go To College Day” Facebook event - which satirised the November 3rd march organised by USI - claimed that the former TCDSU President had made the admission in a private conversation after a debate on fees hosted by UCD’s Law Society on Tuesday last. Sullivan sent a message to all marked as

“Attending” or “Maybe Attending” on the Facebook event saying “As a follow up to this event, I thought you’d be interested to hear what USI Deputy President and Campaigns Officer, Conan O’Broin, had to say last night when I asked him: why, if there was massive reform of the grant scheme, we still shouldn’t have fees for third level education? to which he responded “in private we’ve said to the government that if we get a proper grant system, we’ll take fees”.”

Sullivan was asked to speak at the debate in the wake of significant national media coverage of his “National Go To College Day” page.

Continued on page 2

No room for women in TCD Boardroom Ronan Costello News Editor A report by Trinity’s equality officer, Karen Campos McCormack, shows that there is a significant gender imbalance in the college’s top administrative jobs. The Gender and Promotions Report, combined with the most recent Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2009-2010, show that there is a clearly identifiable glass ceiling in Trinity’s academic and administrative hierarchy.

The Annual Equality Monitoring Report states that “women are under-represented in senior positions, with the consequent lack of recognition in the College community.” The report highlights a number of statistics to back up this claim. First, of the 24 Heads of Schools, only five are female.

Women only account for 21% of all Fellows with 56 out of 273 Fellows. As regards representation on the decision making bodies of College, women make up 28% of College Board members (8 out of 29 members) and 32% or 12 of 37 members on the College Council.

Over the years there have been small improvements in the number of women holding decision-making positions in College but the Gender and Promotions Report shows that “the inflexion point in women’s career progression in College occurs at the Lecturer Bar: women make up 55% of Lecturers below bar but only 37% of applicants for promotion at the Bar, the number of women lecturers above the Bar drops by 50%.”

The report points to a number of factors that go some way to explaining the inequality. Having consulted with staff the report says that there was a perception that research was the main or only factor taken into account in the promotions process and that the College’s male dominated environment is discouraging to

female staff aspirations because of a perception that there is little heed paid to the contribution of women from both an academic and administrative point of view.

Another striking point made in the feedback from female academics and administrators was that College is not at all accommodating to those who seek to strike a proper work/life balance, with a perception that College did not offer adequate day care facilities or provide a proper “return to work” structure.

Overall there is a perception among female staff that the College has an outdated and gender biased view on how a career should progress and what path it should take, with little thought given to how female staff may be forced, by familial reasons, to take an alternative route.

A telling observation is that this problem is one that has persisted, with successive reports pointing to the same problems year after year with little to no proactive action being taken by the College.

The report recommends that the College follow the example of the Civil Service which has promoted gender equality by setting short and long-term goals with responsibilities being taken by those in charge of the promotions process, namely the Heads of Schools and Deans.

Gender mainstreaming was recommended as a means by which College can ensure that all promotions and employment processes are gender neutral.

A UN-approved method of promoting gender equality, gender mainstreaming is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral part of planning any policy decisions, thereby resulting in more attractive opportunities for promotion for both sexes.

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College rejects restructuring report

In Soviet Russia, clothes wear you!

»» Critical report’s recommendations shunned »» Review Taskforce rules out “further substantial structural changes” »» “Little appetite for further change” and “growing financial crisis” cited Rónán Burtenshaw Deputy News Editor

Students’ Union President Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem prepares for his photoshoot for the Cancer Society Naked Calendar with Cancer Society committee member Tiernan Kennedy. CancerSoc aim to raise €10,000 for cancer research with the calendar, which goes on sale next Tuesday. Calendars can be pre-booked from ww.nakedcalendar.ie

84% of TCD students find job market difficult Rónán Burtenshaw Deputy News Editor A survey carried out by The University Times has produced mixed results on student employment in the College.

366 Trinity students were surveyed in an exercise which focused on issues related to employment and finances. It found that the majority (57%) are currently out of part-time employment and have been for an average of almost nine months.

Of those who are not employed, 65% describe themselves as “interested in parttime employment” but only 60% have made “attempts to find” any.

One respondent remarked that “a lot of my

friends refuse to look for jobs because, apparently, ‘there are no jobs’”. Another thought that “students were too picky about where they work, and what work they’re willing to do”. A respondent who regularly received student CVs in his place of work remarked that “the majority of students have little or no idea about putting one together or how to appropriately hand it in”.

The relatively low level of work experience stood out in the survey, with 48% of students having less than one year, and 18% having between one and two years.

This was discussed in comments made by students who took the survey, with one reflecting that a person has “no chance of getting

366

84%

Trinity students were surveyed

of students see the job market as either difficult (47%) or very difficult (37%).

a job if you have no experience - it’s a vicious circle.”

Those that have jobs at present work an average of eleven hours per week, although the figures submitted indicate that there are two significant poles of working hours around sixteen and six hours per week which created this average.

If this average was extrapolated for the approximately 11,500 undergraduate students in College it would mean that Trinity students work an average of 54,395 hours a week in part-time jobs.

There was an almost even split among those who had seen their employment decreased in the past two years (48%) and those who had not (52%). For those who

had seen a decrease, the last year had been particularly bad with 66% of respondents seeing a reduction in that time.

The survey showed that students receive considerable support from their parents, with the average of the 213 students who receive income support from home placing the figure at €77 per week. The 213 out of 366 students who replied to the question “if you receive income support from your parents, how much do you receive” makes approximately 58% of respondents.

Again, if this was to be extrapolated to the entire student population it would mean that

¤77

26%

the average amount of support per week received by students who receive money from their parents.

Continued on page 4

rated their financial position as difficult or very difficult

Documents obtained

by The University Times indicate that the recommendations made by the midterm review team, Profs. Luc Weber and Sybille Reichert, in regards to College restructuring will not be implemented.

College began an academic restructuring process midway through the last decade. This resulted in a series of new academic structures being put in place by September of 2008.

As promised at the time that these structures were introduced, a mid-term review was conducted to “provide an independent evaluation of [their] effectiveness”.

The review was preceded by a damning internal academic survey, published

by The University Times after attempts at suppression

by College, which showed high levels of dissatisfaction with the new structures and the process of restructur-

twelve headings relating to the areas where changes were needed. These were: multi-disciplinary schools, faculties, the Heads of schools forum and Council, Vice-Provost and other annual officers, Chief Operating Officer, revised resource allocation model, strategy development, central administration, role of the Provost, information system, planning the re-launch of the reforms and communication.

These findings were presented to the Board over two meetings on June 30th and July 2nd, 2010. The Provost, in a recent e-mail to staff about the report on restructuring, said that the Board “accepted the overall thrust of the reviewers’ recommendations”. Board meeting minutes from the two days indicate an acceptance of both the analysis and the recommendations by Board members, with only one person expressing strong reservations.

In response to the re-

Provost John Hegarty wrote that the Board “accepted the overall thrust of the reviewers’ recommendations”

ing which had put them in place.

The findings of the report were also critical. In its analysis it pointed to widespread inefficiency, poor communication, an overly centralised and “top-down” system of governance, poorly constructed executive job descriptions and serious flaws in the new structures which made them incapable of achieving the goals for which they were created.

The report also made a series of recommendations, which it summarised under

port the Board established a Review Taskforce to consider in particular the recommendations made.

This Taskforce contained two members of the Steering Committee which had conducted the aforementioned academic survey and brought in the mid-term review team, Prof. John McGilp and Academic Secretary Ms. Patricia Callaghan.

The other members were Prof. David Singleton Continued on page 3

Humanities research council feels the pinch Rónán Burtenshaw Deputy News Editor

The difficult economic climate is forcing government-sponsored research body for the humanities, IRCHSS, to award fewer grants and shut down some programmes altogether.

Postgraduate students who have applied for grants from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) have found that applications which would once have been awarded grants are being stalled or rejected. High-scoring applications which meet the criteria for “awardability”, receiving a high percentage score, have told The

University Times that they do not expect to receive grants from the body.

IRCHSS was established in 2000 to develop Ireland’s “research capacity and skills base” by funding projects in humanities, social sciences, business and law.

Though allocated a budget of €12.5 million in 2007, this has decreased in recent budgets and December 7th’s budget is likely to see a further reduction. Put into perspective, the area for which IRCHSS is responsible (arts, humanities and social sciences) accounts for roughly 50% of Trinity’s student population. Engineering, mathematics and science, the purview of equivalent body IRCSET, accounts for 30%

and health sciences account for 20% approximately.

This alteration is in addition to the cessation of the programme for academic sabbaticals. These ‘research fellowships’ are listed on the IRCHSS website as “not in operation during 2009/10”. In fact, all statements on grants awarded by the IRCHSS on their website now list them as “conditional”.

On October 27th IRCHSS

released a statement on their website about their 2011 programmes. “In the event funding [from the Dept. of Education & Skills] being reduced or discontinued, neither the Department nor IRCHSS will be under any liability to provide funding for any reduction or cessation of such funding.

The Postgraduate Scheme 2011 will not be launched until funding is guaranteed following announcement

Editor: Tom Lowe Deputy Editor: Tommy Gavin Volume 2, Issue 1 Phone: 01 646 8431 Email: info@universitytimes.ie

of the Government Budget.

The Postdoctoral Scheme 2011… will be evaluated depending on the availability of resources.”

Equivalent body for sciences, Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET), posts no such statement on their website. Science postgraduates who have recently received IRCSET grants told The University Times that they hadn’t noticed

The University Times This newspaper is produced with the financial support of Trinity College Students’ Union. It is editorially independent and claims no special rights or privileges.

any similar decrease in the number of awards by the body or the number of programmes offered. “Sciences and technology in particular are being prioritised, so the cuts [IRCSET] receive are likely to be much, much less significant”.

Neither body responded to a request for comment on their current financial status or the programmes they offer.

The Editor, The University Times, 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 Website: www.universitytimes.ie

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

2

TimesNews FEE and Students in Solidarity stage brutality protest

What’s inside?

TimesFeatures

Left-wing groups have been receiving a lot of media attention since the November 3rd protest turned violent. Ian Curran investigates their motivations, and asks whether their claim to represent students is legitimate Fionn Fitzpatrick looks at the great mainstreaming of the video game industry Caelainn Hogan interviews Fine Gael Education Spokesperson Fergus O’Dowd

TimesOPINION

Provostial candidate Colm Kearney on resolving Trinity’s crisis Eugene Reavey on the High Court’s ruling that a by-election should be held in Donegal South-West Moninne Griffith, Director of Marriage Equality asks “is civil partnership enough?”

Timessports

Jack Hogan’s Premier League Miscellany charts the misery of Liverpool fans UCD live to tell the tale as the recent soccer Colours match ends in a draw Midleton defeat Trinity’s 1st XV by a single point Dan Bergin tries Capoeira

Our contributors discuss sex and sexuality in the sexiest of UTculture issues.

Michelle Doyle sits down for a chat with David Norris Katie Abrahams interviews Yeasayer Rachel Shearer talks to a real life Trinity practitioner of Neil Strauss’s pickup tactics Ines Novacic interviews Riyadh Khalaf, reality TV star and Spin 103.8 intern, discussing gay marriage and civil rights

The virulent reaction of left-wing student groups to the conduct of members of An Garda Siochana at November 3rd’s sit in at the Department of Finance spurred two groups, Free Education for Everyone and Students in Solidarity, to organise a protest march last Wednesay.

It was estimated that around 500 students participated in the march, despite the bitter November cold.

The protest began opposite the Department of Finance at the Wolfe Tone statue with its final rally point at Pearse Street Garda station.

The students were lead by a banner saying “End Garda Brutality” as they chanted “Whose streets? Our streets”.

Watched by a small contingent of passive Gardai,

the students made their way to Pearse Street peacefully. As the protesters neared Pearse Street one of their number pretended to hit people with a baton while wielding a riot shield which had the words “thug unit” written on it.

Vanessa O’Sullivan, who was knocked unconscious by Gardai outside the Department of Finance, addressed the crowd, O’Sullivan said “This day last week I was knocked unconscious by a Garda. All I am guilty of is walking inside a public building and sitting down.” The crowd shouted “shame” at the attending Gardaí as she spoke.

Aidan Rowe, leader of Free Education for Everyone and Theoretical Physics and Maths student in NUI Maynooth, said that “it

was inspiring that so many students came out to show that they weren’t afraid and would not be intimidated by the Gardaí.”

Citing “Garda brutality” as the reason for the protest march, Rowe said the violence outside the Department of Finance was instigated by the Gardai. “They clamped down on the protest,” said Rowe, “they wanted to send a message to the people of Ireland, to discourage any more protests.

They’re highly trained, they could easily have handled it in a different way but instead they did what they did.”

Speaking about the reaction to the sit in, Rowe said that the mainstream media had swung round to the side of the students and that it was USI who had betrayed those who participated in

the sit in.

“Sit ins are a commonly used tactic when protesting. USI itself organised a sit in the last time there was an anti-fees march. I don’t accept the USI line that we hijacked the march. Free Education for Everyone wants the same thing that USI wants, we just wanted to show that by being more proactive and staging an act of civil disobedience.”

Despite this criticism Gary Redmond, President of USI, is adamant that the actions of the sit in protesters on November 3rd played directly into the hands of the government with media attention being drawn away from the substantive message of the 30,000 strong march and to the fracas outside the Dept of Finance.

Vanessa O’Sullivan, who was knocked unconscious by gardaí on November 3rd, addresses the crowd. Photo: info-wars.org

28% of Trinity students say finances “difficult” Continued from page 1 €513,590 per week is transferred from parents to students in income support.

There has been a reduction in the disposable income level of Trinity students in the last two years.

Students see their current amount of disposable income as 11% lower than what they had available to them in 2008.

Their verbal classification of their disposable income status reflected the degree of this change. 58% of students felt that they had “around the same” (28%) or “worse” (30%) levels of disposable income, while 24% had either better of significantly better levels and 14% were in a “significantly worse” position.

Overall, half of students saw their financial position as stable, while just over a quarter (26%) rated it difficult or very difficult and 23% were either comfortable or very comfortable with their position.

Student opinion of the job market at present was overwhelmingly negative.

84% saw it as either difficult (47%) or very difficult (37%).

The number of students who saw it as in any way comfortable was below 5%.

The cleavage between Freshmen and Sophisters was significant in the survey results. Sophisters were more likely to be in parttime employment (47%) and had substantially more work experience. Only 32% had less than a year’s work

experience, while the number with over two years’ was 44% This compares with 59% of Freshmen who had less than a year’s work experience, which correlates closely with the 60% of Freshmen who are currently out of part-time employment.

Of those who were not in employment, it appeared to be more discretionary with Sophisters (58% were interested in a job) than with Freshmen (79%). This enthusiasm gap continued in the numbers making efforts to find jobs, Sophisters were fifteen points less than Freshmen, 66% to 51%.

Sophisters were also likely to have been out of parttime employment for a longer period. 54% of them had

been out of work for between eighteen months and two years, while Freshmen had seen the biggest change in the last six months or year (82%).

The level of income support received from parents was also higher among Sophisters, with an average of €96 per week. This was a third higher than the amount received by Freshmen, €64.

Senior Sophisters and Junior Freshmen were the hardest hit group out of all undergraduates in terms of disposable income, with their average disposable income having taken a 16% and 17% hit respectively.

As a result, 87% of SS students said their disposable income status was either the same or worse and no Senior

Sophister respondents classified the job market as in any way comfortable.

The highest rate of unemployment also came from JF(66%), and this again correlated very closely with the number who had less than one year of work experience (65%).

In stark contrast to their fellow Freshmen, Senior Freshmen have seen the lowest decrease in their disposable income (6%), the lowest number have seen decrease in their working hours (42%) and those that are out of part-time employment have been so for the shortest time (7 months).

One reason offered consistently in the survey comments section for the high level of students out of parttime employment is the lack

of flexibility of jobs on offer.

One student offered the explanation that it is “difficult to go to college, see family, have a job and still relax” while another said “employers simply do not want weekend employees, which is all I can do.”

The need for contacts to secure jobs was also highlighted as a problem. “Nepotism” was mentioned by some as a reason why they had jobs and others as a reason why they hadn’t. “There are no jobs without connections” opined another student.

But the most consistent complaint was the lack of jobs for those with low experience. “I was saw (sic) an advertisement for a parttime in a deli that required two years experience. That

is utterly ridiculous” said one respondent. Another believed that there is an “experience trap” that was likely to lead to an “inescapable downward spiral”.

Remedies to the problems of student employment were also suggested. Many felt that sites like Monster.ie and Jobs.ie were ineffective for students and were set up for the unemployed looking for part-time or full-time jobs, which didn’t suit the student demographic. One student looked towards the SU for a solution, “if the SU could set up a database of employers in city centre looking for staff and students [looking for part-time employment], that could easily be accessed by both parties it would be really helpful.”

Student finances causing stress - charts by Richard Conway

29.5% WORSE

SAME

49.7% STABLE

13.8% BETTER

10.5% SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER

VERY DIFFICULT

DIFFICULT

SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE

27.5% AROUND THE

36.3%

22.6%

14.8%

47.1%

18.1%

3.9% NO OPINION

How would you classify your disposable income status relative to 2 years ago?

2.6%

DIFFICULT

COMFORTABLE

5.2%

VERY COMFORTABLE

4.5% How would you classify your current financial situation?

1.3%

STABLE

VERY DIFFICULT

VERY COMFORTABLE

COMFORTABLE

9.2%

3.6%

NO OPINION

How would you rate the job market at the moment for students?

52,000 students march Halls intruder “3 days through London out of prison”

Tomás Sullivan Staff Writer

Last Wednesday, fiftytwo thousand students and lecturers marched through London city in opposition to hikes in university fees and cuts in university funding proposed by the coalition government.

Coachloads of students, from all over the UK, came to London and marched through the capital to Whitehall in a protest against plans to cut university funding by 40% and to nearly triple the current limit on university fees to £9,000. Both the NUS (National Union of Students) and USU (University and College Union) organised and spearheaded the march UK Students currently pay a maximum of £3,290 a year, which is normally covered by an interest-free student loan, paid back gradually after a graduate earns over £15,000 a year, while the government also funds universities directly. The form that cuts to this system

will take is far from clear, but a recent report by Lord Browne, the former head of BP, is the main model the government is working with at present. Browne has suggested no cap at all on fees, but universities that charge over £6,000 would have the excess heavily taxed. David Willetts, the universities minister, would set a cap at £9,000.

The government claims that the student loan will continue to cover the whole up-front cost of education, and Browne has recommended certain encouragements that will help students from poorer backgrounds. Nevertheless, students who are unable to pay off their loan quickly will be repaying the equivalent of a mortgage, along with 2% interest, for up to 30 years after their graduation.

The NUS and their affiliate unions are, like SU’s in Ireland, trying to get students politically active. The NUS wants people to contact their MPs, by mail or in person, while the USI’s ‘tell

your TD’ campaign has led to around 25,000 letters to TDs, all of which TDs are required to reply to, and TCDSU’s ‘I am a vote’ campaign has so far put 700 students on the electoral register.

SU president, Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem, commented that both campaigns highlighted a rise in student political involvement, in reaction to two austerity governments cutting back on third-level education and viewing education as an easy target. ‘Students in Ireland and the UK are beginning to say to themselves ‘This is my future that is going down the drain here’ and its dawning on people just how serious this issue is.’

Nikolai regretted that the London march, like Dublin’s, despite being largely peaceful and well organised, was overshadowed in media coverage by the behaviour of a minority.

Several hundred students gathered at the conservative party HQ in the Millbank building, stormed past the

few police officers and began a riot within the building, wrecking offices and physically assaulting several people. A fire extinguisher was thrown from the top of the building onto the police below and a suspect may be charged with attempted murder. The Met Police Commissioner commented that the entire incident was an ‘embarrassment’.

The riots outside the Department of Finance last Wednesday, despite dominating news coverage, have not detracted greatly from the political impact in this country. The same may be true of the London demonstration.

The NUS president, Aaron Porter, called these scenes ‘despicable’. Speaking at a rally outside the Tate Britain, he told the protesters: ‘We have taken to the streets of London in unprecedented numbers today’ and that ‘we will not tolerate the previous generation passing on its debts to the next’.

Rachel Lavin Staff Writer A man who was arrested after he was found trespassing in the bedroom of a first year student in Trinity Halls was reportedly just three days out of prison for previous charges of burglary.

Recent rumors of intruders in Halls were quickly dismissed by residents as ‘halloween myth’. However there was widespread shock when the Warden confirmed the students’ fears on issuing an e-mail to all 1000 residents entitled ‘Burglaries in Halls’. He stated that ‘On Saturday night (October 30th) an intruder was found in a bedroom of an apartment on the 4th floor of one of the buildings’ adding ‘there is reason to believe it may not have been his first visit to Halls’.

The student who originally encountered the suspect, leading to his resulting arrest, was Katie Ware, a first year english and history student from Missouri.

Speaking with The University Times, she told us how on the night in question she was in her bedroom sleeping when she heard the front door of her apartment, which had been wedged open for her room-mate’s return, open and close gently. She quickly dismissed this but awoke seconds later to find a figure standing in her doorway. Described as a short white male wearing a skull cap and dark clothing, the assailant, on noticing Katie, fled the apartment.

Pursuing him as far as the landing, Katie confronted him. ‘I just got up and ran after him, I asked him was he in my room but he mumbled a reply I couldn’t understand and left’.Shocked by the incident, she returned to her apartment and with her three flat-mates went to security to report the trespasser.

In a further twist of events, on returning to their house twenty minutes later, the three girls ‘couldn’t believe it’ when they were

met by the intruder exiting the ground floor elevator. Katie once again confronted the man, shouting ‘Why were you in my room?’

The assailant who Katie admits ‘seemed not completely in touch with reality’, answered her claiming he was a resident. Amidst the confrontation Security arrived with the assistant warden and the trespasser was quickly apprehended until Gardai could arrive. The man was swiftly arrested and taken into custody. After giving a statement to police Katie was informed that the man was being held on the grounds that he had violated his parole as he was ‘just three days out of prison for previous charges of burglary’. He was also reportedly suspected of other burglaries that had taken place in Halls, as security “have him on camera” previously to this incident .

On speaking to the warden, Brendan Tangney, he said of the incident that the “intention of burglary was

there”.

While the incident raised many issues of security in Trinity Halls accommodation, the warden insisted that ‘Halls is a very secure place but people do have to be careful’. He warned against the danger of wedging doors open and insisted residents be careful of who they allow into halls.

When questioned with regard to the delayed security response to Katie’s report of a trespasser, which she claims was almost twenty minutes and in which time she encountered the assailant a second time, Mr. Tangney denied any inefficiency on security’s part. ‘The response was quick. Security and the assistant warden came over and apprehended the guy who was trying to leave until the guards came’.

Rathmines Gardai were unavailable for comment.

3

The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

TimesNews VP’s resignation causes consternation

Morale in Trinity impedes restructuring progress

Tom Lowe Editor

Continued from page 1

Patrick Prendergast’s sudden resignation as ViceProvost on the 27th of October has resulted in a hasty reshuffle of high-ranking academics.

While Prendergast’s resignation to contest the Provostial election was fully expected by all, his candidacy being all but assured, the sudden manner of its announcement left the College Board scrambling to appoint a new Dean of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty, with the former Dean, Professor Michael Marsh, being appointed Pro-Vice-Provost.

In anticipation of the Vice Provost’s resignation and in

the Law School will be under the excellent leadership of Professor Ivana Bacik, whose nomination to the position as Acting Head of School received the unanimous approval of the School Executive, until the completion of the appointment process for the new Provost’.”

However, some students within the Law School have told The University Times that Professor Biehler appeared distinctly displeased at the prospect of taking up her new position. Speaking to her large Equity class in the Ed Burke theatre, Professor Biehler appeared emotionally distressed and seemed to be “welling up”, as one student put it. Describing her appointment to the position, Biehler said

The departure of Patrick Prendergast as Vice-Provost caused a hasty reshuffling of Trinity’s top jobs

an effort to avoid adding further complications to what will be a challenging year for the college, Professor Hegarty secured the agreement of Professor Michael Marsh to be Pro-Vice-Provost/Chief Academic Officer until the completion of the appointment process.

The college has said that the promotion of Professor Marsh created a vacancy “which Professor Hilary Biehler has willingly taken on with the full support of the Heads of School within the Faculty. She has stated that ’she is looking forward to the challenges of the role, secure in the knowledge that

that she had arrived late to the College Board meeting at which the appointment was being made and all the other Heads of School had refused the position prior to her arrival. Feeling “forced” into the position, Professor Biehler said that she’d prefer to be staying at the Law School and that she was very sorry for leaving her students halfway through the term.

The College authority has said that the process for appointments to Pro-Dean of faculty were followed to the letter.

as Chair, Profs. John Parnell and Dermot Kelleher as heads of multidisciplinary schools and Dr. Howard Smith as head of a single discipline school.

This Review Taskforce ruled out “implementing any further substantial structural changes” reasoning that there was “little appetite in College” and a “growing financial crisis”.

This meant, they said, that “the risk of implementing [these substantial changes]… far outweighs the risk associated with modifying the current faculty-school structure”.

These structural changes were considered significant enough by both the midterm review team and the Review Taskforce to make them the first and by far the largest sections of their reports.

The initial report had recommended that “all schools with one only subject and under 40 academic staff should look for the most promising partner… within a maximum of three months” for amalgamation into multidisciplinary schools. Various incentives were suggested to facilitate this process but “where no agreement can be found” it recommended that “TCD leadership should decide on the school formation”.

The end date for the maximum length of time for this process, counting from the submission of the report to the Board, would have been the beginning of October.

The recommendations of the report continued that “at the same time as new merged schools are formed,

the faculties should be disbanded.”

The Review Taskforce considered four possible scenarios changes to the school-faculty structure. In descending order of degree of change they were: “flat structure of 24 schools, 7-8 faculty structure, modified faculty-school structure and status quo”.

The Taskforce did not accept “the recommendation that College should move quickly to establish… a small number of multidisciplinary schools.” While it accepted that the recommended structure “had its merits”, it felt that “given the current state of morale in the institution… any attempt to impose a policy coercively would be seriously damaging”. It also described the costs involved as “prohibitive”.

The Taskforce suggested instead the option to “modify the faculty-school structure”. While describing the problems highlighted in the analysis of the original report as “tangible” and an “impediment to good governance”, it felt that these could be dealt with as effectively by a modification of existing structures as any further restructuring.

The Taskforce departed less from the original report’s recommendations on the reorganisation in the Research Committee and schools in the Faculty of Health Sciences. It also endorsed the recommendation that the Vice-Provost should “retreat from the undergraduate committees”, in future the Undergraduate Studies Committee will be chaired by the Senior Lecturer.

The Taskforce also endorsed the view of the midterm review team that “too much power is concentrated at the centre [in the] Executive Officers Group and Planning Group”. It echoed the original report’s recommendation for a “two-way flow of ideas” by saying that College should “henceforth proceed on the basis of informed engagement”.

One method suggested to achieve this decentralisation was to reinstitute the “Head of schools forum” as the “primary policy making forum”. The Taskforce itself suggested a committee along these lines be established that would “participate centrally in major decision-making”. However, the e-mail distributed by the Provost on measures taken by the Board indicated that this body would only be a “point of reference/sounding board” for the Planning Group.

Further points of agreement were found on more minor issues such as the role of faculty deans and annual officers, with consensus on the need for clarification and debate on the role of the Provost likely to impact the upcoming Provos-

efficiency, clearer reporting lines, reform of central administration, cross-school co-operation and identifiable role boundaries.

A promise was also given by the Board to take up the recommendation to institute a “fit-for-purpose information system” that spans students, staff, research and finance. No timeline was given, however, for when this is expected to be in place. The original report said this system is likely to take “2-3 years at least” and gave a “word of caution” about the possible “derailment” of this project through “bad planning or over-ambition”.

Given the rejection of the mid-term review team’s central recommendations of renewed restructuring that should proceed “urgently”, the section on “planning the re-launch of the reforms” is absent from the Taskforce’s document and the Provost’s e-mail. No indication could be found in the Board meeting minutes of any intention to reject the most significant recommendations of the mid-term review team and their reaction remains to be seen.

A review of effectiveness

New Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Hilary Biehler said she’d prefer to be staying at the Law School

tial elections. The Taskforce also fully “endorsed the recommendations in respect of administration”, which provided a five-point plan to achieve greater flexibility,

of any changes made will take place after one year “in cases where there has been significant change to current operations”.

Government fast tracks Student Support Bill and backtracks on reg fee Ronan Costello News Editor Following a period of heightened student lobbying the government has made a number of concessions before the budget announcement on December 7th.

According to TCDSU President Nikolai TrigoubRotnem the Student Support Bill will resume committee stage on or before the 25th November with the Department expecting it to be signed into legislation before Christmas. The mooted amendments include the creation of one centralised awarding body and to allow the grant to be paid to students banks accounts on a monthly basis with the result that students on the

grant will no longer have to wait well into the academic year for their grant to arrive.

“We have been pushing for this Bill to be enacted for a long time and not only will it make students’ lives easier but it will also save money for the tax payer by reducing the number of awarding bodies from 66 to just 1 centralised body,” said Trigoub-Rotnem.

While the reform of the grant system will undoubtedly ease the financial strain that a significant number of students are under, the concessions made on the increase in the registration fee is a more obvious victory for USI.

Staff Listing Editor Tom Lowe Deputy Editor Tommy Gavin News Editor Ronan Costello Features Editor Caelainn Hogan Opinion Editor Marykate Collins Sports Editor Manus Cronin Deputy News EDITOR Rónán Burtenshaw DEPUTY Features Editor Ian Curran Deputy Opinion EDITOR Eugene Reavey Deputy sports Editor Jack Leahy PHOTO EDITOR Dargan Crowley-Long RESEARCH Editor Ciarán Nolan Social MEdia EDITOR Guy Arbell Design AND INFOGRAPHICS Richard Conway

The student march on November 3rd is credited with highlighting students’ issues to Government. Photo: AP Vyas

During the past week it was reported that Green TDs, including Deputy Paul Gogarty and Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan, were opposed the doubling of the registration fee that seemed all but inevitable two weeks ago.

On Thursday last it was reported in The Irish Times that doubling the registration fee had been taken off the agenda and that a rise of up to €800 was being considered in budget negotiations.

On Friday it was reported that €500 was a more realistic figure with Deputy Gogarty saying that he would not expect the

registration fee to increase beyond €2,000. Speaking to The Irish Times, Gogarty said “This year, in the light of the huge economic pressures we face, a rise is unavoidable. But talk of an increase to €3,000 or even €2,500 is untenable and would have an immediate negative impact on student participation and on struggling families already hit in other ways. We believe that €2,000 is a more realistic figure.”

The Green Party seems convinced by USI’s argument that severe cuts in education which would directly affect already beleaguered students will have serious long-term consequences on Ireland’s much lauded “knowledge economy”.

News in brief

Head of School of Languages receives Pushkin Award in Kremlin The head of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, Dr Sarah Smyth, has been awarded the prestigious Pushkin medal by Presidential decree of the Russian Government.

This medal, which recognises individuals from outside of Russia who have made, throughout their lifetimes, a great contribution to the study and advancement of Russian language, literature and culture, is named after a founding father of Russian literature, the poet Alexander Pushkin. No more than 10 individuals receive this award annually, previous winners including a former Chinese and a former Czech president. Dr Smyth is the first Irish person to win the award, and one of only two awardees from the EU. Sarah Smyth has spent over 30 years studying and teaching Russian culture and the Russian language.

The Trinity department of Russian and Slavonic Studies is the only one of its kind in Ireland, and teaches around 100 undergrads. ‘It puts us on the map’, Dr Smyth told the University Times, when commenting upon the impact the medal would have. ‘It lets the world know that there is a Russian department, and an interest in the Russian language, within Ireland.’

Dr Smyth feels that there is a feeling of distance associated with Russia in Ireland, but also a lingering sense of threat that goes back to the cold war.

This is despite great literary and cultural ties between the two countries that Dr Smyth points out.

‘Consider the numerous adaptations of Russian drama in Ireland, by key writers like Brian Friel and Thomas Kilroy’. Both Ireland and Russia have great international reputations for literary culture, but ‘Ireland has been much more successful in marketing theirs, and using it to create tourism.’

There are around 100,000 Russian speakers in Ireland. President McAleese recently visited the country, and the Taoiseach plans to visit next year. Dr Smyth notes that in addition to the attraction of their culture and language, Russia holds much promise as potential trade partner with Ireland. Russia is a land of ‘economic opportunity, a place of great natural wealth’.

Dr Smyth is currently working on a project, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, which investigates Russian speakers in contemporary Ireland, asking ‘who are they?’ and how Russian language speakers are becoming part of 21st century Ireland.

Tomás Sullivan

Tell Your TD campaign sees 25,000 letters sent The Union of Students in Ireland’s automatic letter-writing website www.tellyourtd.ie has been used by 25,000 people in two weeks, according to a USI spokesperson.

The website automates the process of sending a letter to your local TD saying that “your position on [registration fees, grants, the student assistance fund and graduate employment] will influence my vote in the next general election. I look forward to hearing your position on them.”

News in briefs The Cancer Society’s annual Naked Calendar will be launched next Tuesday. Notable inclusions in this year’s calendar include Ms Trinity, the Snow Sports Club, DU Players, SU President Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem (see page 1) and DU Orchestra’s finest talent.

There may also be a few unexpected, high-profile inclusions. As usual, all proceeds from the calendar will go to cancer research. Interested parties can preorder the calendar at www.nakedcalendar.ie

Provost 11th-best paid in Irish education Leanna Byrne Senior Staff Writer Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr John Hegarty, was ranked 11th in list of the top 100 best-paid in education published in The Irish Times last week.

Investigations into the education sector carried out by journalists Seán Flynn and Peter McGuire discovered that over 75% of €8.59 billion of the education budget accounts for the pay and pensions of staff in education. Ultimately, the 25%, or €2.14 billion non-pay element, of the education budget, has positioned Ireland as one of the lowest spenders on education in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In addition, Ireland came close to the bottom in the international league tables in regards to education spending in relation to GDP. However, the most

prominent feature of the investigation was the high salaries received by academics and bureaucrats annually. These findings came parallel to increasing calls for public service salaries to have a cap of €100,000 as over 60 staff members in the education sector earn more than €150,000. In addition, 476 education sector staff earn over €110,000 and in total 497 people are on the professional salary scale of €113,575 - €145,952 according to The Irish Times survey.

Provost Hegarty just fell short of the top ten high earners in education, with a salary of €202,118 a year.

Recently-resigned ViceProvost Patrick J. Prendergast, who quit the job to run for Provost, was ranked in at 21st in conjunction with many other top educational figures with a salary of €156,249 a year.

Students’ Union President

Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem told The University Times that “the Provost will find it very difficult to defend his salary considering he has come out in favour of raising the registration fee and cutting costs around campus. A 5% cut in pay for all the TCD staff in the Top 100 earners would create a saving that would be allow the Library to open on Sundays all year.”

Trigoub-Rotnem also pointed out that “the Provost is also given accommodation in a house which on conservative estimates would probably generate over 100k in rent a year.”

Among those that ranked in the top five was Vice-President for Research in UCD, Professor Des Fitzgerald, who earns €263,602, which makes him the highestpaid academic in Ireland.

This salary has fallen from €409,000 in the last year due to pressure from various interest groups criticising

the exceptionally high pay packet.

Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, Professor Frank Gannon came in second on €259,697 a year. Gannon has since been headhunted by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane and leaves the public office position at SFI at the end of the year.

President of UCC, Dr Michael Murphy, also finished in the top five, ranking third.

Dr Murphy is the highest paid of the seven university presidents earning a salary of €232,151. Murphy was also among the presidents that ignored requests from former education minister Batt O’Keeffe to take a pay cut.

Despite government cuts to higher education, the salaries of 20,000 staff working in third-level colleges have remained unchanged. The total cost of

pay in the university/IT sector amounts to €1.3 billion per annum and a further €62 billion is said to be spent on pensions to 22,700 education staff.

This survey has caused many academics to protest against the idea that they are “high-fliers” in the education sector. In a letter to the editor of The Irish Times, Mike Jennings of the Irish Federation of University Teachers defended the levels of pay claiming that “university staff have already taken earnings cuts of approximately 20 per cent, while the numbers of students they teach have reached the highest levels in history”.

Correction Trinity College wishes to correct a factual inaccuracy which appeared in The University Times dated October 19th, 2010 last, in an article entitled ‘27 Promoted Academics to get back pay’.

The College would like to clarify that the senior academics in question were promoted in title only for the duration of the current Employment Control Framework and that there will be no back pay involved.

The suggestion that the promoted would receive back pay in the memo from the Vice-Provost mentioned in the article in question was not implemented.

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

4

TimesNews A week in the life of Trinity’s Twitterati Trinity Film Review

Caitriona Murphy

Fiona Hyde

UT Protest Live

@trinityfilm

@CaitrionaHurMur

@fihyde

@UTprotest_live

A day in the Pubs office well spent? No. It was shit. Another day banging my head against the wall that is selling advertising space.

instead of hiking up the registration fee, why don’t they just cut the new Provosts salary by 2/3? Its not like they need it.

I’m covered in hives for some unknown reason and I have to go to a dinner party. I bet this never happened to Audrey Hepburn.

Paul from #TCD BESS JF says gees are inevitable and the SUs should ‘get over it’

Darragh Genockey

Ian Curran

@genockey

@coodana92

Club promoter just suggested hitting helmet wearing people with a bat after they do a shot...

That’s one for the Maybe pile.

Slept in @genockey’s bed last night. And I don’t regret a thing.

Zach Eustace Karl McDonald

@jonnconorzach

@karlusss

@comedyfish @comedyfish Simple, fun joke to play on non-English speakers. Tell them that slang for house, or home is ‘lair’. Oleg, the times we had.

Learned that Justin Bieber is bringing out his ‘debut autobiography’. ‘Debut autobiography.’

USI Deputy President accused of conceding on fees Continued from page 1 He was interviewed by “Morning Ireland” and Matt Cooper on Today FM’s “The Last Word”. Ó Broin and Paul Lynam, President of UCDSU, were there to advocate the anti-fee position.

In an interview with The University Times, Sullivan said that he approached Ó Broin and Lynam and asked them why, if the grant system was improved, fees would have to be opposed.

According to Sullivan, Ó Broin said that he had been telling TDs with whom he had met that USI would be willing to accept the re-introduction of tuition fees if a comprehensive reform of the grant system was promised.

Sullivan said that he was “bemused at this because the whole line of USI and all the other SUs has been ‘no ifs, no buts, no education cuts’. So, apparently behind students’ backs, they’re agreeing something else.

For a union that’s meant to be representing students, I think it’s completely false and an abdication of their responsibilities to gauge the opinions of students.

“My problem with this is that, while I agree with them that a better grant system would eliminate the issue of fees, they have not brought this discussion to the students.” Ó Broin has vehemently denied saying any such thing to Sullivan or ever negotiating the re-introduction of fees with anyone at any level of government or

student representation.

Adamant that his position was misinterpreted, Ó Broin said that while he admitted that the argument against fees would be significantly weakened were comprehensive grant reform to be introduced, he had never made any concessions to TDs on the issue.

“It’s not true. I’ve never said that to any TDs. It’d be unconstitutional. Even privately, when I’ve had this argument with fellow USI or college union officers, I’ve never advocated the introduction of fees,” said Ó Broin.

On Wednesday last, Ó Broin sent an email to all presidents of Students’ Unions affiliated to USI and the officer board of USI denying Sullivan’s claim, writing “There is a story going around that I have been making secret offers, or saying things in private which are contrary to USI policy, to the Government on the issue of third level fees. This is absolutely and completely untrue... In the course of my work, I have met with dozens of TDs, but always in the company of another officer. Neither I nor any other officer in my company has ever said it to any TD, on any occasion, that if the grant system was reformed, we would accept tuition fees... I am fervantly (sic) opposed to any form of tuition fees, and have been arguing against any increase in the Registration Fee to the best of my abilities for the past 16 months.”

UCDSU President Paul

Ó Broin has a quiet word in the ear of USI President Gary Redmond at this month’s protest march. Photo: AP Vyas

Lynam has said that Ó Broin is and has always been against the re-introduction of fees. However, Lynam also admitted, as did Ó Broin, that they are frustrated that fees is always put centre stage, ahead of grant reform.

Lynam said that the introduction of a perfect grant system would most likely result in the loss of all neutral support against the reintroduction of fees. TCDSU President Nikolai TrigoubRotnem agreed with this statement.

This debate arose out of the broader issue of there being a significant and vocal number of students who argue against the USI line on fees. Led by Senior Freshman English Studies student Max Sullivan, the pro-fee contingent attracted significant attention, particularly on the Facebook event page entitled “National Go to College Day”. This page was set up in direct competition with USI’s “Education not Emigration” page with a similarly designed poster and the title “Education, Not Ill Informed Thuggery”.

The mission of the event was simple: to encourage students not to engage in a protest against cuts that, in the opinion of Sullivan, are not only inevitable but also justified. The page appealed to students who “want to show the taxpayers of this country [their] appreciation of a year/years of free college education” and who think that “a better grant scheme, and/or a fee repayment scheme are ways to ensure that people do not get

left behind with the introduction of third level fees.”

Speaking to The University Times, Sullivan said that he was motivated to set up the event because he was “sick and tired of the SU and USI posting lots of Facebook updates and printing posters with catchy slogans without much debate about the actual issues and whether there were other options instead of the ‘cuts or no cuts’ line. If nothing else, what it did was to draw out people like Tom Lowe to argue their case in a coherent manner.”

Asked whether he was opposed to the SU, Sullivan said: “I’m anti the way most SUs operate at the moment.

I’m anti people like Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem coming out and standing in front of a crowd of people as if they had come to see him. I think that’s a ridiculous misuse of power.”

Sullivan’s efforts have highlighted the complaints of a growing number of students who believe that the debate over fees is oversimplified by USI and college SUs. Sullivan says that if Ó Broin and other SU officers believe that a reform in the grant system would be a more worthy cause then they should put this to their student constituents and not reserve the decision making power for the higher echelons of student representation.

Additional reporting by Leanna Byrne

Trinity students claim top honours at undergraduate awards - Leanna Byrne reports Eight Trinity College students were awarded with the William Butler Yeats medal at the prestigious Undergraduate Awards of Ireland and Northern Ireland which was held on November 1st in the Royal Irish Academy.

Winning students Aidan O Flannagain, Donncha Conway, John Murtagh, Daniel Philbin Bowman, Barry O’Donovan, Fionnuala Barrett and Siobhan Moriarty with their awards.

Awards were presented to the selected winners by guest of honour, Mary Robinson. Winners Aidan O’Flannagain, Donncha Conway, John Murtagh, Daniel P Bowman, Barry O’Donovan, Fionnuala Barret and Siobhan Moriarty were among the 26 undergraduates selected from 1,603 submissions and a shortlist of 173 students.

Founded by two Trinity College students, Oisin Harahan and Paddy Cosgrave, The Undergraduate Awards are held annually for undergraduates studying in any third level institution in Ireland or Northern Ireland. The aim of the awards is to generate support and celebrate the work of innovative undergraduates who are in their final or penultimate year of a degree course. Students submit essay and projects which are completed as part of their routine course work throughout the academic year for consideration under 20 categories. This year Trinity undergraduates succeeded in the fields of astronomy and space sciences, business, economics, English studies and literature, environmental and geosciences, law, mathematical studies, and philosophical studies.

Trinity College Communications Office were also pleased to say that “fifty students from TCD were highly commended and shortlisted, making up 29% of the shortlisted candidates”.

The winners are considered to be “Ireland’s top undergraduates”. Speaking at the Undergraduate Awards 2010, Jim Barry, chair of the Undergraduate Awards, praised the winners, saying that “the 26 students we are awarding here today have completed outstanding work, at a standard we believe is internationally excellent.”

However, although students were recognised for their outstanding contributions, attention turned towards the current climate for undergraduates as a survey published for the awards ceremony, stated 31% of undergraduates who took the survey feel they will definitely not find employment in Ireland in the next year, while 43% admit that, “it will be difficult”. Even though students see their education as being of a high standard, it seems that their hopes for the future are not bright as many see emigration as the best option for their degrees to be recognised.

Michael Kelly, chairman of the Higher Education Authority in Ireland, went on to discuss the importance in Ireland, claiming that “in the globalised environment in which we exist we have to think more consciously about how we differentiate ourselves from the international competition. This is as true in the competition for ideas as it is in business and commerce.”

Winning essays and projects will be published in the Undergraduate Journal of Ireland & Northern Ireland which is produced by the Undergraduate Awards. These journals will be available to read in every third level institution library on the island of Ireland.

Do you know something we don’t know?

Send your tips to news@universitytimes.ie

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The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

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Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

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TimesFeatures

What is and what will never be The Right to Peace of Mind

Darragh Haugh Staff Writer

Amnesty International Ireland’s mental health campaign is fighting for mental health to be considered a human rights issue and have demanded that the Irish government make it a political priority.

The psychological pressure of the recession has inevitably increased the need for mental health services and yet the new budget threatens further cuts to an already inadequate service.

Jane McGowan, president of DU Amnesty, had the following to say on the matter: “Amnesty Ireland’s mental health campaign is based upon Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights which states that everyone enjoys the right to “the highest attainable standard of...mental health”. The Amnesty working group namely ‘Experts by Experience’ is comprised of individuals who have personal experience of mental health problems. Indeed, this group has given Amnesty Ireland’s campaign the truth and experience that so many published reports and recommendations have lacked.

“Whilst clamouring for the provision of adequate mental health services for the Irish people, Amnesty Ireland is also committed to combating discrimination and stigma.

Although outrageously underfunded to date - Amnesty Ireland is lobbying the government against further cuts to the ‘Cinderella of the Health Service’, in the imminent budget.

Tackling the taboo and contention that often encompasses mental health issues must be addressed and thus fair, necessary funding MUST be granted!”

You can support the campaign by submitting an email to Mary Harney at www.amnesty.ie/make-mental-health-political-priority

The harsh reality of student life is that, while it can be the best time of your life, most of us will at some stage suffer from depression. The turbulent nature of life in university means that even the strongest of us have at times felt at our lowest. Currently mental health problems are the second highest cause of workplace absenteeism. It’s a fact that 62% of people under the age of 24 say they feel stressed at least once a week, yet few of us would ever admit it. The following are the experiences of several students who have suffered from depression while at Trinity. They have asked that their names not be included.

“The most frequent thing you’ll hear when

friends I didn’t know who I could talk to. For a long time after, all I could think about was how lonely I felt.”

When it came to coping each student seemed to have a different method ranging from just “getting through it” and “self imposed isolation” while others found refuge in alcohol. “I used to be the biggest drinker of my mates. I used to look forward to nights out as they were a diversion from what was going on in my head. However, after a while it became such a crutch that I could barely sleep without drinking. Eventually it got to the stage when things were really bad I’d lock myself in a room for a couple of days with some booze and cry through the worst of it. I thought it was my process, my way of staying balanced.”

Another mentioned how she used to stay in bed for days at a time. “I didn’t see any point in getting up as things could only get worse.

My flatmates would call in and I’d tell them I was sick or busy doing a project on my laptop.

I was so afraid they’d find out what was really going on”.

All the people who I talked to agreed that admitting they had a problem was the hardest part. “On the outside I acted the same, I didn’t want people to notice, I guess I wanted them to think that I wasn’t weak. I came to this college from a small town and I didn’t want to admit that it was too much.” Sometimes we forget just how hard it is to find help, regardless of its source, yet every student I met found the first step to be the hardest. “I was so scared to tell anyone, I wanted someone to help me but I didn’t know how to reach out, I just prayed that someone would call me, that someone would rescue me. I even imagined how the phone calls would go.”

These students have shared their stories in the hope that other students will realise just how common and often debilitating depression can be. Thankfully all of these students received help but there are many more out there who still suffer. The reason there’s a mental health week and hundreds of Niteline ads around college. Depression is a real concern for each and every one of the students in Trinity. Don’t be afraid to admit it.

“After a while it became such a crutch that I could barely sleep without drinking”

you tell your friends you’re depressed is why” one student told me. ”The simple answer is that isn’t a single reason. It’s easy to explain a bad reaction to an end of a relationship, exams or family troubles but for me there was no easy answer. I just realised one day that I wasn’t the same and I didn’t know why. How could I begin to put myself back together when I didn’t know what was wrong?” Another student recalled how the end of a long term relationship threw his life into disarray. “I had built a large part of my life around that one person and when things didn’t work out as hoped I didn’t know how to react.” The effects of such a change had far reaching effects with the rest of his friends to the point where he became isolated.” I no longer felt like showing up to lectures and since we shared so many

Photo: Dargan Crowley-Long

aa

Technology: Gaming

The gaming industry sits comfortably in the mainstream Fionn Fitzpatrick looks at an industry, formerly the preserve of nerds and losers, which has finally tapped into the public consciousness.

sort of recognition for video game developers represents a turn around in the attitude of the press to a once maligned industry. Newspaper headlines for video games were once reserved only for the most controversial or violent.

For example, the release of the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) was greeted with the familiar and inevitable backlash

Ricky Gervais appeared in the game’s comedy club, where players could enjoy original stand-up material from the star of The Office and Extras. Seminal rapper Nas even contributed an original track ‘War Is Necessary’ to the game, whose car radios have featured every artist from Justice to REM. A partnership between Rockstar games and Amazon even allows US gamers to

themselves to music very easily, and this has opened up huge new audiences for artists and performers.

Take the massively popular Pro Evolution Soccer 2011. Its soundtrack features a host of indie and electro bands including Crystal Castles, Fever Ray and The xx. Not exactly music you would associate with the typical football fan.

Also, the success of simu-

this huge market, sports network ESPN is expected to be available for Xbox Live subscribers in the US very soon. Over 3,500 live events will be viewable for gamers in the first year of the deal.

These sorts of partnerships will continue to transpire as the number of gamers continues to rise.

The gaming industry, seemingly immune from recession, is constantly ex-

lator games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band has offered some slight relief to a suffering industry.

More and more big companies are finding ways to tap into this exciting, interactive medium. Microsoft recently reported that subscribers to their Xbox 360 LIVE system are responsible for 1 billion hours spent online every month. In an attempt to reap benefits from

panding and is now a cornerstone of popular culture.

It will continue to attract the best talent from Hollywood, be a showcase for innovative technology, and be the preferred past-time of millions all over the world. What the industry will do next and how it chooses to use its influence remains to be fully seen.

Whatever it does though, we’re all paying attention.

T

he recently released video game Fable III features the voicing talents of John Cleese, Stephen Fry, and Simon Pegg, among many others. It’s an impressive ensemble, but no exception.

Also released last month was Fallout: New Vegas featuring Matthew Perry and Kris Kristofferson, and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West featuring Andy Serkis.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Black Ops, which grossed $360m in its first day of release in the US and the UK, features the voice talents of Ice Cube, Gary Oldman and Ed Harris.

This follows a trend over the past decade of actors, musicians, writers etc. lending their talents to the video games industry, an industry that is now firmly a part of the mainstream, in an attempt to exploit its expansive market. Big title releases are now as hotly anticipated as the biggest summer blockbusters, and the numbers are truly staggering.

In 2008, The Dark Knight recorded the biggest ever opening weekend for a single movie grossing $158 million world-wide. Last week, Call of Duty: Black Ops grossed $360 million on its launch date in the UK and US alone. The entire Call of Duty series has taken in over $3 billion to date.

With these sorts of numbers, the mainstream media is beginning to take video games much more seriously.

This year the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards included the category “Best

Apparently people can get really into video games. Photo: Dargan Crowley-Long Original Video Game Score.”

The award went to Joris de Man, who composed and recorded the score for Killzone 2 in Abbey Road studios.

The GAME British Academy Video Game Awards is the video game equivalent of the BAFTAs. This year’s ceremony was hosted by Irish comedian Dara O’Briain, and the event was reported on by most major publications in the UK. This

in the press over its gratuitous violence, prostitution, and glamourisation of drugs. However, these headlines were overshadowed by the widespread rave reviews for the game praising its realism, characterisation and game play. The game was also celebrated for its collaboration with actors and musicians, keen to be involved in such an exciting franchise. Comedian and writer

purchase real world mp3s through GTA IV’s in-game mobile phone.

This sort of innovation speaks volumes about the possibilities for interactive entertainment. It’s also an example of how the emergence of video games to the mainstream could be a lifeline for the music industry, fighting a losing battle against illegal downloads. Video games lend

Paul Kelly disagrees....

GAME ON has recently arrived at the Ambassador Theatre and is fast becoming a phenomenal success. For only ¤5 an hour you gain the pleasure of over 120 playable games and consoles ranging over the last 35 years from Asteroids to Prince of Persia.

The games span across time, genre and technology and this is emphasised as you walk in the door of the exhibition and are greeted by a giant 5 foot by 5 foot game of ‘Pong’. Praised as the game that finally brought gaming into the mainstream ‘Pong’ consists of 3 objects on the screen: a small grey rectangle representing your bat, another for your opponent and a little grey ball that flies in-between the two. The game is essentially ping-pong using only a dial which you can twist left and right to move up down - and don’t even think about 3-D. Moving along a bit further you’ll find the very first Sonic and Mario games released, yet another example of gaming going ‘mainstream’.

To your right of this you’ll find Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 and run up a short flight of steps you’ll find Halo 3 - I think you can see where I’m going with this.

To almost every major commentator the Nintendo Wii represented gaming finally going mainstream but according to GAME ON this happened as soon as text-based games bit the dust 35 years ago.

Realistically video games have been going mainstream like clockwork every 7 years. The only thing that ever changes is how big an audience they’re getting - these days, that’s everyone with a pulse.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, video games going mainstream stopped being about who you had playing video games - probably when your granny started playing golf on the Wii - and started being about how to integrate gaming with every other major industry in the world.

As a direct result, nowadays in-game music has a slightly different tone to it. Say goodbye to catchy monophonic jingles and hello to games winning international music awards.

With cinema this is also obvious - there isn’t one film which is released which doesn’t have a video game counterpart. Now, even actors, writers and musicians are getting their part of the gaming pie.

To many this is perceived as bringing gaming into the mainstream but, as GAME ON shows, the video games industry was already there- now it’s just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

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The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

TimesFeatures Q&A: Fergus O’Dowd, Fine Gael Education Spokesperson Features Editor Caelainn Hogan met with Fine Gael Education Spokesperson Fergus O’Dowd in Leinster House recently to discuss fees, emigration and the recent student march.

What is Fine Gael’s position on raising third level registration fees?

We’re not in favour of raising the registration fee.

At the moment it’s ¤1500 and the government propose we believe at least a ¤1000 if not more increase. Instead, we believe in the post graduate contribution, in other words when people graduate from college, they will pay one third of their income after graduation based on the cost of their course. Based on figures we have, for arts it’s roughly around ¤8,000, that’s one third based on a three year cycle. The point is that you will only have to pay once you reach a certain income.

The McCarthy report showed that ¤271 million can be saved at third level. I questioned the Minister on this issue yesterday and she agreed with me that there are issues where significant savings can be made in third level colleges, for example, through more staff contact hours.

Have you seen the recent report in The Irish Times showing that 75% of education budget is taken up by pay and pensions?

That’s right, even the money that is presently put into the student charge isn’t actually spent on student services and there are other issues about transparency and accountability in

universities.

I reported on this recently and identified a number of issues. One is that, say in one college, UCD, special bonuses were paid without the consent of the Higher Education Authority. University of Limerick for a two year period had three presidents on the full salary of the president for each of those two years. The former president of NUI Galway had to pay back over ¤250,000. It’s a big issue.

this purgatory, that the people that come out are the young people.

What effects to third level education can be expected within Fine Gael’s ‘Reinventing Government’ scheme?

There is clear evidence that the more cost the less likely people are to participate at third level. When we have so many people in negative equity, so many middle class people who would have lost their jobs and working class people, it’s obviously very difficult for them as well, so it’s a massive issue and it’s going to get tougher.

The key comment about ‘First Steps’ is that the evidence shows that people who come from disadvantaged homes suffer disproportionately through the system and if they have proper early intervention, preschool intervention, it means that there is a phenomenal success rate for them and it can bring us well above our average. Early intervention is critical.

The main thing is we’re looking at education in the totality. Obviously we’ll be looking at primary and secondary education as the priority areas, there’s no doubt about that.

For third level, we reckon our scheme will bring at this moment in time ¤5 million per annum into the system when it’s fully up and running and that will more than meet the present needs and will allow for further benefits for third level education we believe.

We are looking at education because obviously the future of the country rests with our young people and the more highly qualified and capable they are the better we’ll get out of this mess.

It’s the next generation that’s important. The country has been brought into this abyss and we have to make sure, as we go through

Even with free fees, social exclusion at third level is still a problem. How will you solve this and how will the ‘First Steps’ early education programme outlined in ‘Reinventing Government’ help?

How do you plan to tackle graduate unemployment, with 70,000 graduates on the live register, and the problem of emigration?

We believe in graduate

Fergus O’Dowd believes that students and Fine Gael are a good match due to their mutual radical nature. Photo: Caelainn Hogan

placement and proactive policy. Proactive placement is critical. If we don’t look after our best and brightest they’ll look after us.

Do you have any opinions on the student

march on November 3rd?

Why should students vote for Fine Gael?

I think protest is good; it is a good way to vent frustration. Students are very constructive in their views, which is impressive.

Students should vote for us because we are different, radical and proactive. After 18 years of Fianna Fail the country needs change. Hope is our belief. Idealism is our

belief. We plan to make fundamental changes in education, such as giving more power to institutions to influence how funding is implemented. We plan to put Irish education in the top performance league. The Finnish education system which

is the top in Europe is what we’re taking as our model.

Reform in health, education and the public sector are our top priorities.

Trinity’s open research policy in keeping with trend towards information freedom Tommy Gavin and Rónán Burtenshaw

T

he term ‘information superhighway’ is most commonly associated with the Clinton/Gore administration in the US. In the early 1990s it was phrase they put to their proposal for a high-speed communications system to enhance American education in the 21st Century. Initially, they had hoped to use the internet as a basis for this system, but the explosion of the World Wide Web in the mid1990s made it clear that the model would become the mainframe.

This ‘information superhighway’ service has spread far beyond the US. The announcement

by College on October 20th that Trinity was to join the growing number of institutions worldwide subscribing to Open Access emphasises the truly global nature of this phenomenon.

Through its Access to Research Archive (TARA), College will make its scholarly articles, peer-reviewed conference papers and Trinity research theses available to the public. Though similar to systems already in place in Harvard, Stanford and MIT, TCD’s non-exclusive permission to disseminate these intellectual outputs does not require faculty members to retain copyright. In practice, College says, this will mean that “up to 95%” of published material will be available through the publishers’ own copyright policies.

Trinity will be the first Irish university to put a policy like this in place, following almost one hundred universities and fifty research funding councils worldwide. According to the College’s press release, in addition to Dean of research Dr. David Lloyd’s goal to make “knowledge widely accessible”, it is hoped that the scheme will help tackle the unsatisfactory situation with commercial publishers and also be of use internally, helping academics to “reduce duplication”.

The opening up of a superhighway for information has certainly affected commercial entities that had previously attempted to commoditise it for sale. The music industry has seen its margins take a hit from peer-to-peer sharing sites, while media outlets have been forced to face a business model after print and even the movie industry’s colossal profits are seen against a backdrop of a deeply unstable market.

The rise of the information behemoth has not, however, gone unchecked. LimeWire, one of the most popular peer-to-peer sites in the world, was ordered to shut down on October 26th. It was found guilty of copyright infringement and encouraging the illegal sharing of material. The company and its founder Mark Gorton now face a potentially crippling trial to

Julian Assange has become a posterboy for the way the internet can free information.

determine damages in January.

The LimeWire case is the latest in a string of cases where domestic copyright law has been applied to internet file-sharing companies. Initial success against Napster and Kazaa, which both had to pay huge legal costs and settlements, prompted those sites to “go legal” and make a deal with record companies to distribute music within the copyright framework.

In response, the illegal download industry attempted to circumvent legal restrictions by moving to decentralised “torrent” systems in place of peer-to-peer. The test case for this new model was Torrent Spy, which was defeated in court and taken offline in 2008.

But even this latest defeat has not slowed illegal downloads, with representatives for the music industry claiming that there are now more than ever. Individuals behind these companies have also taken on cult hero status. The jailing of the founders of the world’s most popular filesharing site The Pirate Bay in 2009 was followed by the Swedish Pirate Party receiving 7% of the vote in the European elections of that year and winning two seats in the European Parliament.

Another founder of a file-sharing site, Napster’s Sean Parker, was brought to the big screen recently by the movie ‘The Social Network’. In it, Parker is seen recognising the potential of what is then called ‘thefacebook’ as a company and using it as a vehicle to excorcise his demons from the Napster experience.

Facebook’s ongoing privacy issues are a sign of another test for the information superhighway. Portrayed in ‘The Social Network’ as a way for college kids to discuss sexcapades and sizeup potential partners, Facebook has become a hub of personal information about its members. The revelation that it in effect owns all of the material shared on the site, from status updates to bio information and photos, spawned petitions with millions of site members.

Last January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the changes regarding Facebook’s privacy policy saying that “people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information of different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

He continued, that “we view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is, to reflect what the current social norms are.”

However, that the business considers itself an instrument of measuring social norms rather than a venue for more lucrative advertising revenue seems shallow and phony, and therein lays one of the inherent dangers of a culture of openness. That is not to say that openness itself

is dangerous, but rather that the word may deceptive. If this openness is moderated by a party who stands to gain by managing the openness, how is it open? In October at the RSA Europe security conference in London, the Internet security expert Bruce Scheiner accused Facebook of being the most sinister example of a social network exploiting its users’ trust in sharing personal details for profit. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re Facebook’s customer, you’re not – you’re the product,” Scheiner said. “Its customers are the advertisers.”

Google also endured criticism this year following the launch of Buzz, its attempt at a social networking service. The online search behemoth found “followers” for its users by taking email addresses from their Gmail accounts, without clearly explaining what it was doing. At its most melodramatic, this threatened to expose rings of dissidents in countries like China, at its most mundane, forced people who weren’t even friends to connect online. In April, ten privacy commissioners from countries such as Britain, Canada and France urged the company not to forego privacy in a rush to launch new technology. But as Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Jonathan Zittrain said “Nobody has a clear view of where to draw the line on privacy matters online.”

This issue of privacy is broadly compounded by the organisation Wikileaks persistence in leaking documents that governments and other institutions consider confidential. Wikileaks and its founder make no claim to neutrality though, the eccentric Julian Assange has made it clear that his mission is to expose injustice, not provide even-handed accounts of events. In 2006 he wrote “Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations.”

However, how Wikileaks will change journalism is only a symptom of its true importance.

Its mere existence poses a very important question for the future of the internet and the culture of openness: Will it force widespread institutional reform that forbids wrongdoing, or find itself neutered in a way that allows it to continue but in a harmless way? It reason for being is to try and herald a new global era of transparency but the Wikileaks question will eventually be dealt with one way or another. Whether this is a more formalized structure for whistleblowing against specific war crimes and wrongdoings, or mere discredit, remains to be seen. In part, this depends, on how the internet will be regulated, and regulated it will be.

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

8

TimesFeatures

The

Left Bloc Rises

Deputy Features Editor Ian Curran investigates the loosely-affiliated group of revolutionary left-wing groups implicated in the violence outside the Department of Finance following this month’s student protest FEE; Students in Solidarity; Éirigí; The Socialist Workers Party. If you didn’t know what these organizations were last week, you have, at the very least, read about them in the intervening period. These are the names that have dominated the coverage of the fight against third-level fees over the last two weeks.

They have been bombarded with phone calls and emails by journalists who want to know what they are all about. Their members have been Facebook-stalked, Twitter-watched and Youtubed because of the events of the afternoon of the 3rd of November at the Department of Finance.

With a more extreme left-wing outlook than that put forward by the Union of Students in Ireland, the national students’ union, these groups believe that SUs around the country have given up on shrinking the registration fee. They fit the bill of old-school student radicals, frequently using direct action to get their point across - with an idealistic fervour that often seems lacking in a students’ movement sapped of zeal by years of Celtic Tiger comfort.

These groups came together as the “Left Bloc” on the National Student March on the 3rd of this month, and they were at the centre of events unfolding outside the Department of Finace following the march.

USI sent out a press release little more than an hour after Merrion Row was cleared denouncing the Left Bloc in strong terms: “The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) is saddened by the actions of a small minority of people from various left wing organisiations who staged a sit-in protest at the Department of Finance, during the USI protest march today”. The Left Bloc reacted angrily to this, claiming that USI had abandoned its own students who faced a heavy-handed response from gardaí.

Over the course of the last two weeks. The University Times has been investigating these groups - how they operate, who they are and what motivates them.

Free Education for Everyone is an organization established roughly three years ago in NUI Maynooth.

They are a coalition of leftwing students who oppose the re-introduction of thirdlevel fees and have been active, “roughly since the fees have come back on the political agenda;”a spokesperson for the Socialist Workers Party told us. FEE are concerned with the accessibility of the Irish education system and they fear that the doubling of the registration fee will increase the exclusivity of the tertiary education in Ireland. The common

denominator between the groups mentioned above is their willingness to deviate from the official USI methods of protest. FEE are an organizing body that encompasses a broad cross-section of students from various political parties and as such many journalists were asking questions about FEE involvement in the organization of the occupation of the Department of Finance.

A FEE member told us that Students in Solidarity, another left-wing organizing body, had agreed with FEE organizers to stage a sit-in on the day. Apparently, allusions were made to the possibility of,

Solidarity Movement. Rowe confirmed to us that FEE has a firm rooting in anti-capitalist activism. “We’re not a social democratic group,” he said. “We’re further left than the Labour Party, for example.” So if FEE are not a social democratic movement, what kind of socialists do they think they are?

Rowe told us that,” Certainly, quite a lot of our members would consider themselves revolutionary socialists, again, I would be one of those.” He went on to tell us that the movement does accept members of a more reformist-socialist tendency.

One of the great question marks hanging over last

“We had planned to break away from the main march sort of as a protest against the fact that USI were conceding a lot of the cuts,” - Aidan Rowe, FEE organiser, NUI Maynooth “something more serious, depending on the mood of students on the day,” however most members, like Donal Fallon, are against the kind of shenanigans that took place outside the department. He told us that, “people throwing glass bottles or bricks are unwanted in the movement, however the baton charge by the Gardai was not proportionate in response to the throwing of eggs at a building.” It is clear from talking with members, that the organization advocates more dramatic displays of student dissent than the USI but whether this dissent could manifest itself in violence is subject to much speculation.

Aidan Rowe, an organizer for the movement in NUI Maynooth, described the organization of the movement to us. He told us that FEE is organized,” on a horizontal basis.” He said that all decisions are made democratically through discussion with the members. He told us that, “because we think that the cuts faced by students relate to the cuts faced by ordinary people, we think their issues are also our issues.” With regard to this, Mr. Rowe told us that FEE had taken part in marches called by ICTU and Right to Work. While the movement’s political common denominator is broadly socialist, it encompasses members of left-wing parties such as the SWP, Sinn Fein, Labour Youth and anarchist group the Workers

weeks breakaway protest was whether or not the occupation of the department itself was planned. Rowe confirmed that some degree of planning took place. He told us that FEE had worked together with Students in Solidarity, (a student activist network formed through direct co-operation between the major left-wing parties in Ireland) on the occupation of the department. “We had planned to break away from the main march, sort of as a protest against the fact that USI were conceding a lot of the cuts” he told us.

When we asked him about the possibility of the two main organizing bodies, FEE and Students in Solidarity, organizing a more “serious,” statement of dissent on the day, Rowe confirmed that “a few ideas were bandied about that were somewhat more confrontational than a peaceful sit.” However, these ideas were “pretty swiftly rejected.” When asked what these ideas were, Rowe said, “something stupid like trying to get into the Dail.” He said that there was a concern that this type of direct action might instigate “violence,” and/or, “alienate the group from the student movement.”

However, a FEE spokesman said of the occupation of the Department of Finance that “the Garda response has radicalized a great deal of people in a way that no poster or pamphlet has managed to do in a long time.”

It is evident that FEE are conscious of the possibility of a schism opening up in the student movement and as much as they disagree with the official USI line on last Wednesday’s march, they say that they are fervent supporters of the idea of a national student union.

“FEE was the group who initially called for NUI Maynooth to re-affiliate the USI, We don’t want to be antagonistic to the student movement as a whole,” Rowe said.

He expressed a wish that FEE could be something that broad group of students could “get behind.” However, Mr. Rowe expressed disappointment with the USI’s reaction to the occupation of the department. He said that the leadership has shown itself to be “weak,” and that for (USI President) Gary Redmond to “not condemn the Garda violence at all but rather to condemn those who tried to take part in a peaceful act of civil disobedience, I found that disgusting.”

Redmond’s membership of Fianna Fáil has been the subject of much rumination for students, particularly among the Left Bloc, with a a post on indymedia, a socialist news website reading “Gary Redmond is known member of the Fianna Fáil party, the same party that lead this country to ruin and which is now stripping it bare whilst leaving the culprits completely untouched.”

So it is no wonder that Rowe echoed the reaction of many students to Redmond’s dismissal of the activists involved in the protest outside the department, when he said that “what we did was politically inconvenient for him. He wanted the march to have his speech and stuff at the centre of attention for the purpose of advancing his own career.”

These are interesting times to be a student. With so many voices clamouring to claim the mandate of “the students,” some get drowned out, or accredited more support than they have truly earned. For all the media attention and profile FEE have attained, the fact of the matter is that most students do not ascribe to ideals that are further left wing than social democracy, as FEE does. No doubt they feel that their politics gives them the right to speak on behalf of students, but they lack any sort of mandate.

The Left Bloc has valid points to make, but until they can integrate with the existing democratic structure of Students’ Unions and USI, they will always be the gatecrashers who spoiled 30,000 people’s party.

Ciarán Nolan contributed research to this story.

9

The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

TimesFeatures

Long history of student protests shows the way Emma Dunne Staff Writer Surveying the vast crowd gathered before him last Wednesday, 30,000 students with their banners and pickets held aloft against the persistent, chilling November rain, Gary Redmond, USI President, proclaimed that “the sleeping giant that is the student movement has been awoken”.

While the events of November 3rd may not have turned out exactly as Redmond and USI would have wished, there is no arguing with the aptness of that description of the student movement. Powerful, energetic, dedicated and active, students and student activism have historically been crucial forces in any fight for social change. In years gone by, students the world over have been at the forefront of movements to promote democracy, protect rights, push for political reform and encourage social transformation. In some cases, even movements that have toppled authoritarian regimes and deposed military juntas can trace their roots back to the campus.

Whether last Wednesday’s protest and the ongoing student resistance to a fees increase will have any real impact on government policy remains to be seen, but as these famous examples from history show, the student movement is a tool that, if used correctly, has phenomenal potential to bring about real change.

South Korea 1960 – 1987

Whatever the cause of the violence at Merrion Row, it’s undeniable that the Left Bloc were the ones who brought people there.

Photos: AP Vyas, Caelainn Hogan, Ana Araceli Lezcano Cadwallader

Since the republic was founded in 1948, the students of South Korea have played a pivotal role in the democratisation of the state.

In 1960, students succeeded not just in prompting reform within the government, but in overthrowing the authoritarian regime of Syngman Rhee all together, bringing the first republic to an end. The student movement again flexed its muscles in 1987, and a flurry of student initiated protests led to concessions by the government that resulted in elections and significant political changes.

USA Vietnam War protests The Vietnam War protests, or Anti-War Movement, initiated by college students, was a pivotal catalyst that prompted citizens to question the policies that surrounded America’s involvement in Vietnamese affairs. To many in America, their nation’s involvement in Vietnam seemed an exercise

in futility, an uncalled for and unjustified involvement in a war the origins of which many did not even fully understand.

The anti war movement began in earnest in 1965, when the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), a student run organisation led rallies and marches to show their opposition to the war.

The first of these, held in Washington in 1965, attracted over 25,000 people.

Over the next few years the student led anti war movement rapidly gained momentum, as politicians, celebrities, artists and musicians all stepped up to voice their opposition to a conflict the tide of which was increasingly turning against the USA. Perhaps the most notable individual student demonstration of the time was the Kent State Protest of May 1970. Four students were killed and nine others wounded, with one incurring permanent paralysis as a result of his injuries, when the National Guard fired into a crowd of protesters at Kent State University, Ohio. The shootings sparked a massive public backlash, and over the following weeks a nationwide student strike forced over 540 high school and college campuses across the country to shut. One week after the shootings, over 100,000 people gathered in Washington for a mass demonstration aimed at voicing the public’s opposition to the war.

Paris 1968 French students, never quick to shy away from an opportunity to take to the streets in protest, were a pivotal force in the riots of 1968 that eventually resulted in a general election and a major reform of the education system.

In 1968, the education system in France was critically underfunded, overcrowded and lacking in adequate facilities. The student’s discontent found expression first in small scale protests and public meetings and later in mass demonstrations on the streets of the capital that were harshly and controversially suppressed by the CRS – the notoriously brutal French Riot police.

In May of that year, the students were joined by workers, and the nation was paralysed as more than 10 million employees downed tools in a series of strikes that lasted over 2 weeks. The sheer scale of the protests and the resulting election and reform of the education system that they brought about are evidence of the colossal power that students, when motivated to fight for a cause, have to make a real difference in society.

Tiananmen Square Massacre On 3rd June, 1989, hundreds of civilians, students and others were shot dead by Chinese government forces as they protested peacefully against the ruling Communist Regime in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The pro-democracy protests were initially a student led movement, beginning several weeks earlier with peaceful marches and demonstrations. As the movement gained momentum, the students were joined by people from all walks of life, who came together to express their discontent with the insidious corruption that pervaded the government and to call for democracy in China. The protesters occupied Tiananmen Square in the Capital city of Beijing for seven weeks in order to draw attention to their plight.

Despite repeated assurances that no violence would be used against the protesters, on June 3rd, 1989, Government forces stormed the square in a bloody attempt to crush the uprising. Hundreds, and possibly thousands of people were killed as tanks trundled through the city streets and government forces opened fire on the students and others.

Despite the fact that the uprising failed to topple the Chinese Communist regime, it is beyond contention that the student movement, even though it remained peaceful at all times, represented the biggest threat to the Chinese Government since the revolution in 1949.

The future It is clear that the student movement has the potential to be a potent force for change in society. However, from even a cursory look at the cases above, all examples of successful student activism that made an impact, it is clear that if student movements hope to make a real difference, they must do more than just protest.

The strength of the student movement lies not just in its ability to take to the streets, but in the way in which it forms alliances with and gains the support of other sections of society. The most powerful and influential student movements in history; France, China, Iran, all have this in common. By joining with others, the students gain the power necessary to transform society, a lesson that the Irish ‘sleeping giant’, now that he has awoken, may do well to remember if he hopes to make a real difference.

Students at this month’s protest march were less than hopeful about their future in Ireland.

Photo: AP Vyas

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

10

TimesOPINION

Letters to the Editor

Letters should be posted to “The Editor, The University Times, House 6, Trinity College” or sent by email to letters@universitytimes.ie We cannot guarantee that all letters will be published. Letters may be edited for length and/or style.

Extended book borrowing for Schol candidates Sir, I should like Ciarán Traynor (Letters to the Editor, 19 October 2010 to know that the Library will again be providing extended borrowing privileges to Schol candidates for the period from mid-December to the end of the Schol exams.

This arrangement was introduced last year, when the Schol exams were first moved to January.

I wish Ciarán and all other candidates the Best of Luck in their studies and the exam.

Yours etc., Trevor Peare Keeper (Readers’ Services) Library

Civil Partnership first step towards changing society Moninne Griffith Director, Marriage Equality

I

reland is on a journey.

With the passing of the Civil Partnership Bill this summer, the government has extended a limited selection of rights for same sex couples across the country. Now it is time for us to look to the future and ask “What’s next for Ireland’s LGBT community after a period of unprecedented change?”

On Monday, November 15, 2010, Marriage Equality and the National Lesbian and Gay Federation has invited Evan Wolfson, the founder and Executive Director of Freedom to Marry – a US-based gay/straight partnership organisation, and one of the world’s

leading LGBT rights activists to share his thoughts and opinions in an interview with Brian Finnegan, editor of Ireland’s Gay Community News (GCN).

Evan Wolfson first tackled the issue of marriage equality in 1983, in a paper for Harvard Law. In 1999, his work with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund included the landmark Baehr v. Miike case in Hawaii, in which the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying may violate Hawaii’s constitutional equal protection clause unless it is justified by a compelling reason. He was also instrumental in the Baker

purpose.

I believe that College needs to take the following steps.

Student publishing valued

by Roll of Honour

Protect our autonomy, independence and jobs

Sir,

Yours sincerely, Gerry Whyte, Dean of Students

Cap the Provost’s salary Sir, I am sure that we have all read with dismay the salary figures of the top earners (I do not say top academics, because they are not) in Irish universities published in The Irish Times today (9 November 2010). It is clear that there are too many people in responsible positions in our universities taking more out of the system than they put into it.

The other side of the picture is the exploitation of staff at junior levels and of postgraduates pressed into teaching beyond the levels of their experience. Many important posts remain unfilled (to my certain knowledge, for example, in our prestigious Department of French).

Many new posts are contract posts of limited duration and not tenured. There is a double disadvantage in such contracts. In the first place they lead to dreadful insecurity on the part of young lecturers trying to make an academic career for themselves in a most demanding profession. In the second place they stifle discussion in a university on the part of those who ought to be most eager to promote new ideas.

I know from my own experience that the price for speaking out is a failure to gain promotion. In the case of contract lecturers the contracts can be easily terminated. Hence with this failure of reasoned and active debate the disarray in the system of remuneration within our universities has remained unremedied for many years to the disadvantage not only of our universities but of Ireland itself.

I have suggested more than once that the salary for Provost needs to be reduced to a maximum of EUR 150,000 and all other salaries within Trinity downgraded in relation to it. Indeed, given the severity of the country’s economic situation, more severe reductions may be necessary. Perhaps the Provost’s salary needs to be reduced to EUR 100,000 and all other salaries downgraded in proportion to that. Certainly all the candidates in the forthcoming election for Provost must make their position unambiguously clear on this matter.

It is vital for our future that they do and, if elected, implement the necessary changes without fear or favour. We have paid already too grievous a price for political spin.

Very best wishes, Gerald Morgan FTCD (1993-2002), The Chaucer Hub, Trinity College, Dublin 2

influential people in the world”, joining such prestigious former awardees as the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.

He cites the changes that have been made to the institution of marriage within his own lifetime as important catalysts for the struggle for marriage equality. Changes such as legalising divorce, ending race restrictions on who could marry whom, and bringing an end to the legal subordination of women in marriage. And while the changes he references are from the United States, the many of these milestones are applicable to Irish society as well, for example: The marriage bar – the law that forbade women to work in the civil service once they were married – was only lifted in 1975, and divorce was officially legalised as late as 1996.

Of the continuing struggle for equal marriage rights for the LGBT community, Wolfson argues: “[W]e need to have more people break their silence, find their voice, engage in this discussion with the nongay people around them about who gay people really are, why marriage matters, how the denial of marriage hurts them, their loved ones, their partners.... We need more gay people. We also need more non-gay people.”

His ultimate vision, he says, is not just about changing laws: “It’s about changing society. I want Gay kids to grow up believing that they can get married, that they can join the Scouts, that they can choose the life they want to live.”

To find out more about Marriage Equality, please visit our website – www. marriagequality.ie

Trinity can get out of this crisis, but we need to move fast Colm Kearney Provostial Candidate

Further to Martin McKenna’s letter in the University Times of 19th October last, I am happy to confirm that the Dean of Students’ Roll of Honour covers all extracurricular student voluntary activity entailing the unremunerated commitment of time and energy, for the benefit of members of the College community, society at large, local communities, individuals outside the immediate family, the environment or other causes and that this includes such activity carried out on behalf of student publications.

v. Vermont case, which resulted in the creation of civil unions for LGBT couples in the US state of Vermont.

When discussing the difference between civil partnerships and marriage equality, Wolfson is unequivocal. While he noted that the creation of civil unions in Vermont, similar to the civil partnerships recently created by the Irish government, was “a welcome step forward”, he is quick to point out that anything short of equality is not the answer.

For his important work in the struggle for marriage equality, and his role in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, Wolfson was named as one of “the 100 most influential lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal in 2000. Four years later, in 2004, he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 most

W

ith over four centuries of distinguished service, Trinity College has faced many challenges and survived difficult times – including famine, world wars, civil war, and depression.

During the past 50 years it has expanded in size, influence and reputation from a small institution of about 2,000 students in the 1960s to a world-renowned university with more than 16,000 students. This has been achieved by the hard work, collegiality, goodwill and loyalty of staff and students. The College we know today reflects the unique DNA of its long history and traditions – and the ideas and achievements of the people who shaped them.

We now face what is arguably the greatest economic and financial crisis in the history of the Irish State.

Due largely to catastrophic policy errors – compounded by the unwinding of the

property boom, the sharp reduction in tax revenues, and the collapse of our banking system – the economy is on life support overseen by the EU Commission (EC) and administered by the European Central Bank (ECB). The government is trapped in a tightening vice – with the EC insisting on a €15 billion fiscal correction by 2014, and the prospect of even more stringent conditions tied to a bailout from the ECB/IMF’s European Financial Stability Facility.

This creates a crisis for College as it does for Irish society – confidence has been severely dented, and many feel insecure about their jobs and their futures. Over the next decade, College must do all in its power to protect the gains that have been achieved. While doing so, it must also show leadership to society – as it has always done. This will only be possible with leadership and supports that are fit for

We must act immediately to mobilise all available resources – technical, financial, human and intellectual – to defend and protect the jobs of our academic, research, administrative and support staff, and to ensure the survival and future development of all disciplines in the College. Our unique community of outstanding scholars and students owes its continued existence and worldwide reputation to unfailing commitment to our core values and principles.

It is vital that College stands by its staff during difficult times. Loyalty towards, respect for and support of fellow workers are core values that I have espoused throughout my life.

Diversify our funding College operates on a global scale, but its resources are drawn from a local and shrinking base, with about 90% of funds originating from the Irish State. This is a fundamental misalignment.

The government has multiple demands on its very limited fiscal resources, and

it will be increasingly unable to fund a quality thirdlevel education system. The world’s leading universities recognise that diversity of funding is critical to securing autonomy and academic freedom. College must follow this path, without becoming beholden to corporate or other vested interests. My academic career over three decades in a range of universities, and my experience as senior advisor to the Australian Federal Treasurer and Federal Finance Minister during the early 1990s, has taught me that solutions to financial problems can be found, and that courage in the face of political pressure is necessary to make these solutions a reality.

Become more international College should become more open and welcoming to students and staff from outside Ireland, whether they are coming to study or work, whether to spend a month, a term, an academic year, or longer with us.

Our internationalisation efforts should not be limited to countries that are identified as having large middle classes, but should include all regions of the world. College has many students and staff with worldwide university connections, and with focus and leadership we can further engage in mutually beneficial arrangements.

Preserve and nurture our many disciplines In every school, in each of our faculties, we are producing world-renowned creative work and leading-edge research, and with the best students, we are teaching the next generation of leaders. We must commit to protecting all our disciplines. Ireland’s predicament is testament to its need for a truly great university that is recognised as such throughout the world – one with unwavering commitment to individual freedom of thought, expression and association; to academic freedom and tenure; and to the multiplicity of disciplines and diversity of approaches that are central to the promotion of critical thinking and vigorous public debate. Only then can Ireland be confident that its institutions, ideologies and orthodoxies are continually and publicly scrutinised and questioned.

Finally, Irish society, like our community within College, is made up of people with aspirations and dreams, concerns and fears, rights and obligations. We are not just an ‘economy’. Ultimately it is the staff and students that have enabled Trinity College to survive and excel through times of difficulty as well as plenty.

With leadership and support, we will do what is necessary to bestow a better, more stable and more sustainable College to our future students, staff, alumni, and to the people of Ireland.

Tea Party’s surge not as scary as you think Eye on America

Ian Curran

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aking the mick out of the Tea Party is a lot like BESS girls; easy to do? Yes. But not something you want to write a column about.

Americans were not shocked by the results of last weeks mid-term elections.

The tea party had been knocking on the doors of Congress for so long that the neighbours were starting to complain about the noise.

Everyone knew that midterms were more than a simple election of public representatives. They were, as

Time Magazine said, a referendum on, “such fundamental issues as the role of government and the size of the public debt.” But is this an overly-simplistic view of the real reasons why the Tea Party partied all over the Democrats faces? Does the average Tea Party voter actually give a shit about the size and composition of the government? Well maybe some of them do but is it any wonder that the, “averageJoe Six-pack,” (that’s, like, so 2008) jumped behind the movement with the simplest

slogans and the catchiest chants? At the end of the day, the U.S. at the moment is, to quote poet, Phil Collins, a “land of confusion.”

As is the case in Ireland, it seems that only a minority of individuals actually understand the economic jargon that is being flung at us like chimp-shit by the media. Does it not make perfect sense then, that the loudest party with simple, traditionalist values and the lowest-brow posters and buttons (my favourite being a toss up between, “George Washington didn’t use free speech to beat the British; HE SHOT THEM!” and, “we need jobs, not this hopeychangey thing) will make considerable gains in this

environment.

The Tea Party did exactly what David Milliband is doing with Labour party right now; they owned up for past mistakes and blamed them on a deviation from the, “actual views,” of the party. Of course, the media will disagree. Portraying the , “shift to the right,” within the Republican party and throughout America as a whole, sells papers and makes people like Keith Olbermann look like prophets. It’s better for ratings if a clan of gun-nut, racist, homophobic cryptofascists won the House than if the American people fell for a clever and comforting election campaign. To quote Jon Stewart at the recent Rally To Restore Sanity/

Fear, “Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea-Partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez, is an insult – not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate.”

Let’s not panic too much about the results. They are not a fair representation of the view of the American public. They are, however, representative of the concern and abject fear that people all over the world are living in because we literally do not understand what our politicians are telling us.

And it is, by no means, our fault for not understanding them.

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The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

TimesOPINION

The Indelible Mark: Formal defection suspended as baptism becomes permanent Caelainn Hogan Features Editor

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ew changes to canon law claim baptism is irreversible and “it will no longer be possible to formally defect from the Catholic Church.”

CountMeOut.ie, which streamlines the process of formal defection, has since been suspended. Paul Dunbar, founder of the site, told The University Times “the changes to defection are still unclear but it appears that formal defection will no

longer be an option.”

Importantly, defection is not a statement against the Catholic faith but the institution of the Church. Even committed believers have been alienated from the church due to the abuse scandals and victims of clerical abuse have often felt a psychological need to be officially detached. 2,000 people defected from the church in Ireland within a month of the Ryan report and over

12, 000 have completed the form through Count Me Out so far.

Niall Murphy from Co. Down formally defected earlier this year, inspired by a French friend who took the church to court and won the right to have his name removed from its register.

French law prohibits any organisation from having a name on register without consent. As he was a child when baptised, the church therefore had no right to retain his name against his will.

Weakening the influence of the Catholic Church in State matters is Count Me

Out’s main objective. Ireland has no official agreement to regulate the link between church and state and retains a blasphemy law within its constitution. State funded RTE still plays the Angelus everyday on TV. The influence of the church in Irish education is significant. According to Reuters, 9 out of 10 primary schools are funded and run by the church. These schools still retain the right to refuse the enrolment of non-Catholics.

A positive result can still be reaped from these changes. The new permanency of baptism and the abolition of

formal defection present an opportunity to return sincerity to the sacrament and begin a needed change to the latent hypocrisy inherent in Irish culture in which Catholicism is so deeply and yet superficially ingrained in daily life.

The change is typical of Pope Benedict’s “re-evangelisation” of Europe objective: saving the church from “marginalisation” due to the “aggressive secularism” of today’s society. Making baptism a permanent stamp on one’s personal and political identity is an extreme and one might say desperate move to counter dwindling

church numbers.

While official church numbers are bolstered by those who are Catholics only on paper, perhaps this change will encourage future generations to make the definitive decision to end a tradition of hypocrisy and realise that baptism is not a conventional formality but a register of influence, not just with the Catholic faith but with the institution of the Catholic Church. With the 2011 consensus drawing near, the religion question will be one official way in which the Irish people can still make a stand.

The death sentence: racist, retributive and morally indefensible Anita Finucane DU Amnesty

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mong many arguments for abolitionism is the subjectivity of death sentencing where class, race, politics and gender determine the weight of the defense for those on the cusp of paying the ultimate price. Amnesty International’s forthcoming letter writing petition calls for a reflection on this independent act of self-representation that we can exercise simply because we happen to be in the right place, at the right time.

The Death Penalty Information Centre translates the misrepresentation of prisoners on death row where racial determinations in 96% of American states with the death penalty show a pattern of either “race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both” (Prof.

David Baldus report to the ABA, 1998). Adding insult to injury is the low ranking and inexperienced legal representation at hand in what seems like a bureaucratic brush off of a basic human right – the right to life - with devastating consequences.

Misrepresentation is where an organization such as Amnesty International steps in, as in their Troy Davis campaign, by highlighting the injustice of his case.

Davis, a U.S. citizen was accused of murdering a police officer in Georgia in 1989 and has been on death row

since 1991. Following on from his most recent evidentiary hearing in August of this year, his claim of innocence was deemed to be “insubstantial” but nonetheless the Supreme Court Judge ruled that it would be “unconstitutional to execute an innocent person” that had met an “extraordinarily high” standard for establishing his innocence.

Heretofore; before Amnesty brought the case to international attention, leading factors that would later play a defining role in Davis’s defense had yet been brought to light. Recanted witness testimony, legal misrepresentation and “strong-arm police tactics” in the treatment of witnesses’ accounts could have been left as another stone unturned.

Yet still, this miscarriage of justice extends in a crueler form. In contrast to the US, Iran as a leading propagator of the death penalty has yet to exclude juvenile offenders from capital punishment. Since 2008, Stop Child Executions Campaign has reported 140 juvenile offenders on death row in Iran. This underscores the brutality of the death penalty through its own paradox of moral proportionism.

Affirming the right to life for all by eliminating those who violate it is not only ineffective but at odds with itself. Furthermore, the death

sentencing of a juvenile symbolically forfeits any potential for reform in a society. By contrast, the process through which one determines whether a person has the right to life or not, is a much grayer area than matter-of-fact DNA evidence.

Yet matters of fact are what such countries in favor of the death penalty deal in.

Those of the view that justice is not meted out in prison sentences represent a growing fear that the pendulum has swung too far in the favor of criminals. The anxiety that the abolition of the death penalty can lead to shorter life sentences is becoming more poignant.

Capital punishment is also seen as a deterring model that could dissuade future offenders, despite this being largely insubstantially proven, as was suggested in 2009 by our own former Justice Richard Johnson.

When the prejudices attached to the location of the criminal are often the determining factors in handing down a death sentence, there rests a fine line between retribution and revenge. Through our own act of representation as signatories, we are exercising the right to life for those who simply cannot and interpreting those, who organizations like Amnesty campaign for, on an international level. Where there is an absence of better moral judgment in legislation, it is to us such prisoners can look.

The Audacity of Harmon

We need to Call the damn snip, baby election. snip to survive

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he High Court case taken by Senator Pearse Doherty to force the government to hold the Donegal South West by-election was acutely embarrassing, even for a Fianna Fáil supporter like me.

It was embarrassing not just because the government lost, or because Mr. Justice Kearns absolutely excoriated them in his judgement. No, the embarrassment is more acute and fundamental than that. It is the total indignity that a citizen, any citizen, of this Republic had to take a case against his own government, a government led by the Republican Party, in order to vindicate his right to be fully represented in Dáil Éireann.

Our current government has done much necessary work to save our economy. But it has been clear for some time that it has run out of credibility, both at home and abroad. While I’m not one for government by opinion poll, they can’t all be wrong. The Taoiseach has approval ratings lower than Richard Nixon had during Watergate. The bond markets are saying very clearly to government: “We don’t believe you, we don’t believe a thing you’re saying”.

The people of Ireland are saying something very similar, perhaps less politely.

Brian Cowen is a thoroughly decent man, who has been the victim of some very cruel and unfair stereotyping. He has a strong sense of duty and responsibility towards the office that he holds and the country that he, at least nominally, leads.

However, no matter how strong his altruism, there can be no doubt that his government is engaged in a self-preservation exercise.

The simple fact is that the government’s majority in the Dáil is now smaller than the number of vacancies in that house. It knows that were it to hold the outstanding by-elections, it would no longer command the confidence of a majority of TDs. In truth, it probably doesn’t even command such confidence right now. The government is unlikely to be able to steer a budget through the Dáil. Even if it does somehow manage to pull it off, it has no mandate from the people for the decisions it is taking, no matter how necessary those decisions are.

The sight of Brian Cowen clinging to power like some sort of African dictator whose people have long since deserted him demeans both him and the office he holds. What’s worse is that every day he holds on he further damages the country that I know he so dearly loves.

The honourable and proper course for him to take would be to seek the dissolution of the Dáil and call a general election. Then every party could put their budgetary and economic plans before the people and the people would decide. The people may make bad choices, but at least it would be their call.

Brian Cowen would, barring a miracle or major electoral fraud, no longer be Taoiseach. But his conscience would be clear. And maybe, just maybe, the cathartic effect of an election would truly set the country on the road to recovery.

The execution of the four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Education cuts are not the answer Eoin Hamill & Thomas Matthews

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n September 2010, TCD slipped in the QS World University Rankings to find itself solidly outside the top 50. The frightening thing is that this fall from grace was based on statistics collected before the economic shit really hit the fan. I shudder to think of where we will find ourselves in September 2011 when the good people at Quacquarelli Symonds get wind of the stringent cuts imposed by the emergency budget in April 2009 and those awaiting us in the 2011 budget.

In response, much like Irish home owners sensing their houses descend into negative equity around their ears, Irish graduates suddenly began to feel the devaluation of their degrees in the international arena. Thrashing around for a solution to the problem, certain persons began

to express the opinion that an introduction of college fees would have an ameliorating effect on the qualitative nature of Irish third level education, and on the 9th of November 2010 a former president of DCU, Ferdinand Von Prondzynski, wrote in the Irish Times, “to offer globally competitive third-level education, we need some level of student contribution by those who can afford it [.]”

Meanwhile, the government, finding itself strapped for cash, has been all too quick to join in the rising chorus and chirp the tune of fees, but it’s important that one realises that its agenda is not to make Trinity into Oxford or Cambridge, but rather simply to desperately bail water out of the small sinking ship that is our insolvent economy.

Look at it this way, through

the fee remission scheme, the State currently pays the majority of our third level fees and thus funds the Irish universities. Should fees either in the guise of a registration fee or as a full flat fee - be reintroduced, then rather than the State, individual students will simply become the source of TCD’s funding.

Irish universities will not experience any qualitative improvement, rather the burden of maintaining our sliding third level education system will have been passed from the State, and thus every Irish citizen, to individual students struggling through university with the prospect of emerging into a blak economy and an even blacker employment market.

Irish public spending on third level education is ranked 30th out of that of 33 OECD countries. We spend €2.1 billion on our entire higher level education sector whereas individual universities in the top 10 command funding of up to €3

billion each. Dr. Michael Murphy, president of UCC, put it well, “[w]e are spending less on our whole section, the seven universities, than just one of the very top universities like Harvard or Yale. That’s the problem.”

If we are to climb back up the rankings and become the centre of excellence in education that we simply must be if we are to survive as a knowledge economy at a time when multinationals are moving to Bangalore and New Delhi, there is a simple answer. We must drastically increase the level of funding available to our universities. However, the question remains: who should pay?

Now, I’m not for fees, I can’t be. I’m a student. It’s not fashionable. Argue for fees in the Buttery and you’re branded an elitist pariah.

That said, I didn’t go on the march. And not just because it was raining. I was content enough to leave the valiant struggle to the other 42,000 students who marched on

the Dáil. I’m confused. I’m not for fees but my ignorance would point towards them as being a necessary evil.

I’ve concluded that universities need more cash, but if we supply them with what they crave and do so in tandem with a reintroduction of fees, it will mean that students must pay twice or three times as much as the State pays for them now. Is this the sacrifice we must make to increase our international standing in the education sphere?

I, like thousands of other students, will struggle if fees are introduced. My parents have state jobs and my family are already adjusting to life after the public sector income levy. Ireland’s greatest asset is its educated work force. Full fees, or even an increased services charge, will remove many thousands of people from the realm of third level education. Multinational companies lured here by our young talent will leave this

peripheral EU State for fairer pastures, and our graduates will follow the fleeing jobs abroad, and so the Irish Diaspora begins all over again.

Of course, many proponents of the reintroduction of fees claim that those who can afford to pay should pay. Or rather, they mean that those students whose parents can afford to pay should pay. But is this not already the case?

These high-earning parents pay taxes at a higher level than those of students who are on the grant, and these taxes then go towards paying for the education of everyone.

Education is something which benefits the nation as a whole, it made our country great, transforming a small agricultural-based near-third world nation to one of the greatest information economies in the world, albeit with some minor set backs. If education benefits us all, then we should all pay for it, as we can afford it, through taxation. It would be futile to introduce

further means tests that would consume further resources in determining who can or can’t afford to pay for college when a comprehensive system of taxation already exists.

The amalgamation of colleges is another possible route. For a country of only 4.5 million people it’s extremely dubious whether Ireland needs 7 major universities. On top of this, the presence of so many Institutes of Technology and other third level institutions is questionable. With such a scarcity of resources, surely it is time for the government to focus on quality rather than quantity. For example, NUIM, DCU, UCD and TCD are all within extremely close proximity, and necessarily there is a huge duplication of services within a small geographic area. Surely time and money would be better invested in maintaining one or two well funded institutions rather than 4 struggling to make ends meet. However, this is

easier said than done. Questions arise: which ones go?

What happens to the courses which are abolished or merged with others? Will there be fewer places? Will it be harder to enter college? Is college too easy to gain admission to anyway?

In conclusion, the reality is the country is in dire straits.

It is now that our most valuable resources must be harnessed - our bright young minds. The best way to do this is to provide them with the best education possible.

The Institutions charged with providing this service no longer can. However, fees are not a viable option and the ball is now in the Government’s court to look at a major overhaul of an ailing education system. Rather than introducing fees and cutting spending on higher education, they would be better advised to increase spending and to make cuts elsewhere.

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

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TimesOPINION A Mater of life and death: Interview with Dr Finn Breathnach psychological effects. Having to come to terms with your own mortality at such a young age as well as seeing how frightened your parents are, is something a child really shouldn’t have to think about. Missing out on school and losing contact with friends dents confidence and self-esteem. Barrettstown challenges children, with activities like horseriding, stage performance and high ropes, to step outside their comfort zone and believe in themselves again.

We often have parents saying ‘I dropped off my sick child and a few days later I collected my old child back again’ “.

In one of the most controversial debates of the year, Minister of Health Mary Harney is pushing forward with plans to relocate Dublin’s three children’s hospitals to the site of the Mater car park, a decision you say ‘could cost us lives’. What do you believe are the problems with this decision?

“First of all, they will need to build 16 stories high and to make any sort of underground car-parking space they will have to dig down underground by 60 ft. The only reason it’s sixteen stories high is not to give the kids a view of the city but because you cannot fit it in there otherwise. The other thing that bothers me is that despite Ireland having the

Rachel Lavin Staff Writer

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n a week of students getting their first taste of injustice, oppression and bad press, I spoke to a man who has seen it all. Dr Finn Breathnach, retired pediatric oncologist and medical director of Barretstown, talks with us about his triumphs and tribulations throughout his career, giving us an exclusive on one of Ireland’s biggest controversies this year, the building of the Mater Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Breathnach, you established yourself in the early 1980’s as Ireland’s one and only cancer specialist for children, fundraising and establishing the children’s oncology ward as a centre of excellence in Europe. How did you achieve all this amidst helping children fight cancer?

The conditions on the ward were pretty awful at the time and I suggested to mums and dads that we try and improve the facilities. We set up Children’s Cancer Fund and held events all over the country. I was, of course, all of this time writing to the Minister of Health of that time and the Department but I got the same reply right through the 80’s and 90’s. ‘Your letter will receive

attention in due course’. It was years later, I met with the retired assistant secretary from the Department of Health. When I asked him how they could justify not helping me help all those families by giving some money, the response was ‘We knew you could raise the money’. I guess I wasn’t surprised.

After almost thirty years of treating childhood cancer you decided to retire early in 2007. What were your reasons for this?

“I suppose something inside me was telling me to go.

I hadn’t actually reflected on it until asked lately on a radio program and the first thing I could think of was ‘I didn’t really want to break bad news anymore’. I’d seen so much sadness and pain in my life, particularly in the faces of parents and the older children. It hurt me every time too but I found it just increasingly difficult.

I wanted a little more time to focus on myself and my family”.

What drew you to get involved with the respite for sick children, Barrettstown?

“Its simply an amazing place. No child, having survived cancer escapes the

The front of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Dublin 7.

Public transport should remain public Paul Kelly

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he unveiling of the LUAS’s new rail line last month once again puts a damper on the spirit of those who favour the privatisation of public transport. The new LUAS line, which extends the green line to Brides Glen, opened with a free weekend of LUAS-related events, most importantly for most of us, including free travel for both days. Mary Harney, former Tánaiste, has repeatedly championed the privatisation of Dublin Bus with Transport Minister Noel Dempsey continually using it as a threat against transport Unions. Understandably, fears of all public transport, including LUAS, being someday privatised are rampant. However the success of LUAS as a state-owned transport system cannot be ignored. It is a perfect example of how state-owned ownership can produce a more effective and efficient service then private ownership ever could. As the only

transport network in the country which does not require government intervention, all opponents of privatisation need to do is point at LUAS’ booming profits last year as a clear case for public rather than private ownership. In comparison the privatisation of other state-owned companies in the state has been a disaster as can be seen in the examples of Eircom and Aer Lingus. However even if one is to look exclusively at the privatisation of bus and rail the UK’s example bears witness to the troubles privatisation can bring. As a result of the privatisation of all rail and bus services there, health and safety laws were flaunted and prices rose as private companies struggled to reach market equilibrium for their services. Before privatisation passengers were safer, more comfortable and had slightly heavier wallets. Privatisation caused the prices of public transport to soar and passenger

numbers rose by a mere 17% in 16 years- this compares with a 21% rise for the stateowned Bus Átha Cliath back home. Although some may say that we can learn from the UK’ mistakes, and thus implement privatisation successfully, the scheme is even less likely to succeed in Ireland. It might be all very well to privatise Dublin Bus and ‘just’ bear the brunt of low safety standards and higher fares but if the bus service were privatised nationwide many people would never see a bus again.

For a state owned company it will always be in its best interests to serve the entire population as best it may but for a privatised company there is no incentive to divert buses to isolated rural communities. Privatisation represents just another way of reducing government responsibility for it’s citizens. In comparison public ownership in the transport industry will always have one key advantage that private will always lack: public transport will always serve the people - not the shareholders.

highest birth rate in Europe they haven’t allowed any real space for future expansion on this hospital. Now this simply doesn’t make any sense.”

Many people fear the decision will lead to children dying in traffic jams because of congestion problems around the Mater site, How do you respond to this?

“I think it’s very scary. To claim that its an accessible location is nonsense. I’m not sure if they’ve done any specific study of ambulance access times, particularly around the time of major 0events in Croke Park or The Point Depot, but the traffic in that area is pretty awful.

Even the delay of 20 minutes, with getting a seriously ill child to the Mater, could well result in that child not surviving.

You have previously questioned the motives behind such a decision. What aroused your suspicions?

“The same lies have been thrown out from the beginning. Mary Harney keeps insisting that there was huge involvement by the children’s hospitals but nothing could be further from the truth. The choice was made by a board of eleven civil servants, none of whom have ever cared for a sick child in their lives. They claim the McKinsey Report (a blueprint for pediatric services in Ireland) insists

this hospital must be built beside an adult hospital. It most definitely does not say that. I’m pretty certain the choice was made before any such report was issued. Another huge factor is the resignation of the chairman Philip Lynch who quite extraordinarily was asked to resign by Mary Harney because he had the audacity to bring major concerns about this project to the attention of the development board”.

So what do you believe is the true motive for the decision?

“The choice was made probably just to keep Bertie Ahern happy as it is in his constituency. I can’t think of anything else”.

In campaigning against the project, what do you propose?

“Don’t for a moment think that I am against the building of a new hospital. I desperately want a new children’s hospital but the last place it should be built is on the Mater site. All I’m asking is that Mary Harney have an independent international review on it. If that review find it is the best place to put it then I am behind them. I am aware the government don’t actually have enough money to complete it, they are €300million short, and I will be out there helping to raise it”.

Support for the cause can be registered at thenewchidrenshospital.org

Student’s View: Darragh Haugh

Ways and means for students to get attention O

n the 3rd of November 30,000 of us students marched on the Dáil in the hopes of securing a better future for ourselves and future generations.

Despite the show of strength there are a lot of questions still to be answered such as: was it worth it, did we achieve anything and why did some groups resort to French levels of violence?

At 12:30pm on Wednesday the 3rd, 3,500 of your fellow Trinity students, in spectacular form, marched out of Front Square to the sound of “they say cut back, we say fight back” with a whistle and drum accompaniment. Despite the rain, spirits were high as we met up with every single other University and I.T in the country in Parnell Square to form almost a kilometre long sea of students.

What followed for most of us were the obligatory speeches by the USI representatives (some mention of waking the sleeping beast or something) in Merrion Square.

Slowly the crowd dispersed, some went for food, others made their way

to the Pav while most of us returned home feeling exhausted. Then I checked the news. At roughly half past three, a group of Socialist Workers Party members peacefully occupied the Department of Finance until they were forcibly ejected by Gardaí in riot gear. That’s when it started. For the next hour a tense standoff between Garda and student would occasionally burst into sporadic violence resulting in over a dozen injuries and several arrests. If you’ve watched the news in the last few days you’ve seen the videos, and for most people in this nation that’s all they’ve seen.

Despite where the media attention lay we shouldn’t forgot what really happened on Wednesday. 30,000 students with heavy workloads and personal obligations dropped everything to show their support for those less well off. Of course there was a party element to the march; some even called it Ireland’s biggest pub crawl, but only the most cynical of us would think that’s the reason we had the numbers we did. The march

displayed a level of solidarity rarely seen in such turbulent times. It was proof that students aren’t as self obsessed or lazy as many believe us to be. On top of that we’ve shown that students are no longer the easy targets they’ve been in the past. We stood up for those of us who are already struggling to pay for the education they deserve. That afternoon every student in Ireland had one thing to say, ‘I am a vote’, and for once we were listened to. That’s something everyone who marched should be proud of.

However we would be naïve to consider the benefit that the extra media attention has already given students. The violence-free student march that took place two years ago barely received a third of the media attention that this year’s did. This, in conjunction with the voter registration campaign, has greatly increased pressure on TDs to actually listen to students. The government has already begun to back track on recent plans. The rumoured doubling of the registration fee has been

cut back to a proposed €600 to €800 increase and the long-stalled Student Support Bill has begun to gain momentum. This, in no small part, is due to the violent acts of the minority of protestors. The French approach may have worked. As morally repugnant as it was, it may seem a violent protest, in this case, indirectly helped.

This leads to the obvious question: how can we strike a balance between peaceful protest and clashes with Gardai decked out in riot gear?

Is there really a right way to protest?

Irish pensioners have shown the outstanding success a well organised and peaceful protest can have but, in reality students would never be able to gain that level of public sympathy. The truth is we live in an information economy where education is now a necessity. If the smart economy that we hoped to create during the boom years is to have any chance to continue we have to create a society where education is a right, not a privilege.

Rough Justice, yet Supreme Court may save government Eugene Reavey Deputy Opinion Editor

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he decision of Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, the President of the High Court, forcing the Government to hold a by election in Donegal South West could yet prove to be the final death knell for this Fianna Fáil government. This landmark case was brought

by Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty, who successfully pleaded before the High Court that the delay breached his constitutional right to representation.

The Donegal South West constituency has been without representation since for over 17 months since the sitting TD Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher vacated the seat.

It was revealed in the High Court, that not only was this

the longest a constituency had ever been without representation in this State, but it was the longest vacancy in any comparable western democracy. Mr Justice Kearns described the delay in calling the election “unprecedented,” and commented that the Government’s delay had “offended the terms and spirit of the Constitution and its framework for democratic representation.”

It cannot be ignored that the language used by the Court was unusually straightforward, economical, and in many ways damning.

Speaking after his victory in the High Court Senator Doherty commented that the decision by the Court was, “decisive,” and “that it

vindicated my decision to bring the Government kicking and screaming before the High Court.”

The Government did move after the High Court’s dramatic decision and the byelection in Donegal South West will now take place on November 25th. It is a contest which despite what the circumstances would suggest, is not beyond the reach of Fianna Fáil. In Brian Ó’ Domhnaill they have selected a candidate with a wealth of experience. In the 2007 General Election, Fianna Fáil received over half of all the votes cast in this constituency. In the 2009 local elections, they still polled a huge 46% of the vote, despite a poor performance nationwide. However, one must feel at this stage FF have used up their nine lives in this constituency. Mary

Coughlan’s appointment as Tánaiste has been painted rather harshly in the media as an unmitigated disaster, however, it is unlikely that sympathy votes will save the Government on this

It might be the High Court of the land that topples this Government occasion.

Within days of the announcement of the byelection, Enda Kenny was holding a conference in Donegal Town, unveiling

the Fine Gael candidate Barry O’Neill. Although not a traditional Fine Gael stronghold, Fine Gael will have strong aspirations of taking this seat. Their vote increased considerably in the local elections, seemingly at the loss of Fianna Fáil.

With Fine Gael’s record in the West of Ireland, it would be naïve to write off Barry O’Neill’s chances. However, the strong favourite for the seat is Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty. It was his High Court challenge that ultimately forced the Government into holding this election, and it would appear inconceivable that such strong pro-active steps taken on behalf of this constituency will not convert into votes. Doherty has proven popular in this constituency, however, his main handicap remains that Sinn

Féin is not a transfer-friendly party. Doherty’s personal vote is as strong as any candidate in the country, however, at the last general election, he received remarkably few transfers.

Labour have no realistic chance of taking the seat, however, they could yet play Kingmaker in this fascinating contest. Despite the election pacts in the past between Fine Gael and Labour at national level, this doesn’t necessarily manifest itself at local level. Those on the left of the Labour Party might find Doherty a more palatable transferee than Barry O’Neill of Fine Gael.

Whatever the eventual result of the Donegal South West by-election, the main worry for the Government is that they were forced into holding it at all. A similar decree as that granted by Justice Kearns has

been granted in respect of by-elections in Waterford and Dublin. Barristers for the Government argued in the Doherty case that if the Court were to grant the relief sought, it would tear asunder the constitutionally protected separation of powers. Mr Justice Kearns had no hesitation in rubbishing this argument, however, in the light of subsequent events, it is an argument that merits serious consideration. No government has won a by-election since 1982, now this government might be forced to call by-elections, which will in course effectively obliterate their working Dáil majority.

Thus despite the street protests, despite the lowest poll ratings in the history of the State, despite claims of a loss of sovereignty amid increasing European interference, it might be the High Court

of the land that topples this Government.

However, one last hope for the Government remains.

Having to move the writ for the by-election in Donegal was unavoidable, however, the Government have appealed the Doherty decision to the Supreme Court. The current Supreme Court are loathe to be seen as judicial activists. As the far reaching political consequences of the High Court’s decision become clear, it is likely that the Supreme Court may overturn the Doherty ruling, thus providing the government with a legitimate excuse for not holding the remaining by-elections still outstanding in the State.

Having given the Government the fright of their life, it may just be the Courts who ensure this Government lives to fight another day.

13

The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

TimesEDITORIAL

The University Times We live in interesting times

T

he last couple of weeks are a dead cert to feature on the 2010 episode of Reeling in the Years.

At the time of writing, it looks as if Ireland will soon yield economic sovereignty to Europe in exchange for (to use that most intrinsically Irish word) a €60bn dig-out.

The government’s majority is slimmer than the number of vacant seats, and it has received a rebuke from the High Court for violating Irish citizens’ consitutional right to representation, forcing a by-election which will, unless the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds on the grounds that the courts should not meddle in the affairs of government, force a change of regime.

Against this backdrop of national uncertainty, the political apathy that has for years characterised students who grew up during the Celtic Tiger has been replaced with the realisation that these short few months in the 88th year of the Irish State mark the beginning of a new phase in the country’s existence, in which it deals with the consequences of one of the deepest financial crises in the developed world. To put it simply, the Ireland that we grew up in could

scarcely be any different from the one that many of us will be leaving over the next ten years.

It doesn’t help that the political landscape fails to inspire confidence. The vast majority of people blame Fianna Fáil-led governments for the morass we find ourselves in, but none of the backseat drivers in opposition ever managed to impress upon the electorate that we were headed for a cliff.

This country needs desperately needs a new generation of political leaders not obsessed with the issues of yesterday chief among them the Civil War divide that to this day determines the main difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Whichever political parties end up in the next Government (most likely Fine Gael and Labour) will always carry a chip on their shoulders over being in opposition for the period of massive growth, but having to clean up once the party’s over - this mindset is not conducive to the fresh start we need.

At no point in the lives of most students reading this has the future of this country been so uncertain, and yet so easily changed. Be the one who changes it.

3

Where to now for the students’ movement?

0,000 students, 3,500 of them from this College, took to the streets on a wet Wednesday two weeks ago, most of them to voice their frustration at the sudden disappearance of their futures.

The depth of feeling on show was nowhere more clear than on Merrion Row, where many students seemed willing to throw their bodies at clearly agitated and violence-prone gardaí over their frustration.

This is a frustration echoed across the country, by the newly unemployed, , by the business owners who have seen credit dry up and their doors close, by the people forced to leave their friends and family and emigrate in their thousands to seek new opportunities.

Simply, there is no way that the government can continue to balance the books without causing further distress to the citizens of Ireland.

Where does that leave students? For the vast majority of us, college is not an option without government support. We simply can’t afford to privately pay the amount that it currently costs Trinity to have the pleasure of our attendance for four years.

The march had a polarising effect on students. To the left, we have the Left Bloc who feel that to campaign against increases to the registration fee, rather than against the concept in general, represents an indefensible concession to student contributions to third-level education.

To the right, we have those who believe that the free fees initiative has failed in its main goal of broadening access to education to the least well-off, and is nothing more than an effective tax cut for middleclass parents which should be scrapped, particularly in this time of incredible stress on the public finances.

Trinity Students’ Union passed a resolution nearly two years ago which mandated its representatives to campaign against any student contribution to their education. This approach is, in the face of a European bailout, no longer reasonable.

There are students with the means, usually thanks to their generous parents, to pay for more of the cost of their tuition than they currently do without breaking the bank. The current system does not fairly distribute the government’s contribution to tuition fees - the students who can pay, pay relatively very little, and

those who can’t pay at all pay exactly the same.

Cónán Ó Broin, the Deputy President of USI and former President of TCDSU, was accused this week of admitting to government TDs that USI would roll over on the fees issue if the grant system was reformed. Whether or not this is what he said, what stands out most from the discussion that followed this accusation is the understanding among SU Presidents and Ó Broin himself that a reformed grant system makes the case for free fees a lot harder to make - as a functioning way to support the least well-off means that the free fees initiative then exists solely to support those who don’t need a grant.

This newspaper’s ethos is firmly rooted in the protection of students’ rights - but this doesn’t mean a blinkered, anti-fees point of view. When every cent that comes out of the Exchequer’s coffers deepens the cuts somewhere else, no student can claim to have a right to have their education paid for when they can contribute themselves.

It’s time for SUs around the country to start discussing a fairer way to divvy up the cost of our education.

My protest: an eyewitness account of the Merrion Row clashes

A

fter participating in the Student Protest I was returning to college to finish an essay. I bought lunch in the Centra on Merrion. When I walked outside the shop I heard screaming and chanting. I ran over to the crowd and saw projectiles being hurled at a group of gardaí outside the Department of Finance and gardaí on horseback bordering the street. People were being violently ejected from the government building by guards. The crowd had surrounded the gardaí and were shouting and pointing at them, though a small number of people seemed close to a physical confrontation with these gardaí. I saw one girl lying unconscious on the pavement while another young woman attempted to put her in the recovery position.

One member of the gardaí nudged her away with her foot. I saw three other members of the public with faces covered in blood. It was at this point that I decided to engage in the sit-down protest in front of the mounted gardaí. In the beginning there were about twenty of us. We held our hands in the air and shouted slogans at the mounted guards. These guards were being intermittently pelted by eggs, placards and other miscellaneous objects from the back of the crowd. They suffered a great deal of verbal abuse.

I spoke to several people beside me who said they had been called over by a man wearing a USI t-shirt with a microphone, and there were many USI t-shirts in the crowd, but on that day there were several thousand USI t-shirts given away and I even witnessed people buying them off other protestors. Several protestors outside the Department of Finance were bearing Socialist Workers’ Party and Éirigí flags, but the majority were wearing plain clothes with no insignia distinguishing them as any political faction.

After taking account of the crowd, I heard the woman next to me say that the Riot Act was supposedly read out. We had both heard nothing and we were directly in front of the mounted guards, who stood in front of three riot cars, so we discounted this as rumour. At this stage the projectiles

hurled at the mounted guards had become more infrequent due to public pressure by the sitting-protestors insisting on peaceful protest. All of us on the frontline had our hands up in the air to show we were peaceful. One protestor even offered tissues to the police to wipe down their visors, and the visors of their horses. The horses began to advance and we continued sitting with our hands in the air. The horses came forward, urged on by the slowly moving riot cars behind them. The two women directly next to me got caught beneath the legs of the horses and at least one young man was struck bodily by steel horseshoes. At this

He began to beat me then across the arm and the neck and I received a blow across the side of the face point most of the crowd in the back dispersed and in the front people began to stand up. The majority of these were told to sit down again. In the very front, people were either covering their heads or lying flat on their back. I couldn’t hear much over the screaming, but I saw a few times a pattern repeat itself: the horses would advance, become entangled in bodies and then retreat, and aggression would begin against the guards and then would be forced into submission and non-combat by a group of protestors.

The Riot Squad arrived and dispersed the majority of people outside the building.

I didn’t see how this happened as we continued sitting in front of the mounted guards, one of whom was now bleeding from the lip.

When the riot squad had cleared the pavement outside the Department of Finance, the mounted guards left, in which direction I don’t know. A group of photographers were forcibly ejected by the guards then, and then riot squad began to form a line against the flank of our sitting-protest.

A great deal of people left the area at this moment.

From what I could see, most of those remaining were either sitting in the street or were spectators. The Riot Squad edged slowly towards us without engaging in any dialogue. We continued holding our hands, either up, or on the ground, to demonstrate that we were peaceful. Two of the members of the Riot Squad I saw had their helmets manoeuvred in such a way as it was impossible to distinguish their identifying numbers.

They began beating the legs of the people closest them.

The two women next to me were beaten repeatedly on the legs and then dragged across the street by guards who would run in while the beating was ongoing. Then some people began to stand up, either to retreat or just so they wouldn’t be beaten while sitting. Those nearest me continued to sit down, pointing and shouting at the gardaí. The beatings became progressively worse. People began to get beaten over the head and on the face. I saw one man beaten and, while in the act of retreating, fall over and continue to get beaten in the back while prostrate. One girl was held by each limb, and thus incapacitated, and carried away. While she was being carried away one garda said to another, ‘Beat that cunt over the head,’ and the garda brought the baton down across the side of her head.

The method seemed to be that they beat people until they were down and then the gardaí would come in and drag them out. Even as they were dragged out, the gardaí continued to beat them. Most of the people were hit while lying on the ground: in the legs, the crotch, the torso, the face and the arms. What repeatedly happen is that one of us would get beaten and then we would try to pull the affected away from the blows and then we would be beaten in turn until we let them go and they would get hit again, continuously until a garda would drag them out.

I was wearing a heavy coat.

I was not nearly as badly injured as those around me. The four people next to me, and even behind me, were hit repeatedly across the knuckles and the tops of their heads. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, none of us were

Students in Solidarity

Students and agitators (rear, face covered) face off against Gardaí at Merrion Row after the National Student March. Photo: Ana Lezcano sitting. We were beaten back against the wall opposite the Department of Finance.

When we were against the wall the young man in front of me tripped and began to get batonned. The member of the Riot Squad worked his way up his body to his head, which I then covered in my body. He began to

beat me then across the arm and the neck and I received a blow across the side of the face, even though I had drawn my hood up when I saw they were attacking the upper-body. By this stage, I had been pinned to the ground; for how long I don’t know, but while I was beginning to get up two guards

grabbed me by each arm and dragged me past the Squad cars, forcing my body against the frame of the car.

Then one of them hurled me outside the closed-off area and said, ‘Get the fuck out of here, you fucking prick.’ I saw the very few people left behind me receiving much worse wounds than I, and

the strange sight of guards carefully guiding people in suits, uninvolved with the protest, carefully through the affected area.

The riot squad’s actions against the sitting-protestors lasted approximately half an hour. From what I could see we were some of the final people to leave the

area before it was surrounded by lines of guards, so nobody could get the area. That is, essentially, how it ended.

Oisín Fagan This article originally appeared in the Special Protest Edition of The University Times on Friday 5th November 2010

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

14

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15

The University Times | Tuesday, November 16th 2010

Timessports

UTSports interview

dan bergin tries...

Ireland cricketer George Dockrell

Capoeira It’s just after 4pm as I head up to Regent house, just above Front Arch. I’ve been sent by my scruffy mess of an editor to try Capoeria. I’ve been told it’s a kind of fighting through dance. A martial art which was forced to present itself as a dance form due to political oppression in its country of origin. I’m expecting break dancing.

I’ve been told its country of origin is Brazil. I’m expecting…. Football? Maybe?

I dunno.

Changed into my usual Thundercats t-shirt and ever-shrinking tracksuit bottoms (they can’t be tumble dried, who knew?) I make my way up the stairs and through the doors. Oh sweet Jesus, I’m late. They’ve already started. Rows of people with very serious faces taking wide steps backwards while swinging their arms around. Oh god. Where’s my photographer? Oh jesus.

What do I do?

Breathe.

Undeterred, I take up position and start doing my best to copy what everyone else is doing. Swinging my arms and stepping backwards with all my might, I take stock of the room. This seems a lot less homo-erotic than American football was… there are women here for one thing. Lots of women, though I’m by no means the only guy.

Suddenly, we all start stepping forward, this time swinging our arms slightly differently. Ok. This is ok.

I can handle this. I think.

Then I start to sweat. And I do mean sweat. By the time we’ve moved on to the serious-arm-swinging-sideways-step, the underarm sweat patches have met in the middle. There must be some mistake. I’m lazy, unmotivated and love refined sugar, but surely I’m not this unfit?

One of the (very lovely) women starts talking with me. She seems fine. No sweat. Not even that serious a look on her face as she steps sideways and spins around. I notice she’s one of a group wearing white trousers with a yellow rope around them. Suddenly I re-

NUIM 1-8 College Park Jack Leahy Deputy Sports Editor Trinity’s senior Hurling team secured their place in the league semi-finals and a 100% group stage record with an efficient performance against luckless NUI Maynooth at Clanna Gael.

Despite depressingly familiar November conditions, Colm Coughlan turned in a fine individual display, scoring 3-3 and terrorising in the Maynooth defence all evening. His efforts were aided by the dominant midfield display of Danny Scricliffe, whose surging runs and uncompromising tackles set the platform for his team-mate’s heroics.

Trinity were not as dominant as the scoreline would suggest, but the difference between the two sides was ultimately down to a chance conversion; the ‘home’ side were clinical from closerange and their opponents were left to feed off the scraps of long-range efforts on a blustery evening.

The visitors started brightly, capitalising on uncertainty in the Trinity defence to register the first point within three minutes of throw-in. Their lead lasted all of two minutes, however, as Mark O’ Sullivan managed to squeeze the ball into the back of the net. Coughlan then began his scoring spree, converting from 2m

Can we be competitive in the long term?

I think the current crop of players have made some huge strides for the game in Ireland in recent years, and the talent of Irish cricketers is evidenced by the likes of Morgan and Ed Joyce.

But the thing is, Joyce and Morgan played in England for years and eventually switched aliegences – do we not run the risk of losing our best talent to England if they move to the County Championship?

Players will want to move over to the County

alise I’m not talking to a poor fishing girl who can’t afford a proper belt. I’m talking to one of the serious competitors here. I mention my moist-shirt concerns, and she replies’ “Wait till you feel your legs in the morning.” I try to laugh this off. P’shaw, I say to your dancy-legs pain.

I’ve done American football. I own my own tracksuit bottoms. That’s halfway to a whole gym outfit. I can take this. I lean back on the wall to try and look cool and find myself suddenly jumping forward. Upon embarrassed investigation, I discover the radiator is roasting. In fact, the heating seems to be on full blast. A fully carpeted room, with heaters on full blast. This isn’t Capoeria, this is some sort of vicious bikram yoga. My editor really is trying to kill me. Bastard.

From the look of things, if some of these folks wanted to kill me they really could.

By the time we get on to larger movement sequences, the place is beginning

after Scricliffe’s shot was knocked down by the Maynooth goakeeper.

The sides then traded points before NUIM missed a good opportnity to drag themselves closer as Mark Davis fired a penalty straight at keeper Colm Gleeson. They managed two points in quick succession after the interval to worry the Trinity backline, but fears were swiftly allayed when Coughlan played in Leo Sexton to race home and finish expertly in the corner of the Maynooth goal.

Tempers began to flare mid-way through the second period, Maynooth perhaps justifiably aggravated at the bizarre decision of the umpires to not allow a point which bisected the Trinity upright. A six-man scuffle soon ensued which saw Colm Murphy given his marching orders and first choice of shower stalls.

Thankfully, the reduction in numbers failed to impact upon Trinity’s performance, Coughlan adding a fourth before Fergus Morely found himself in space in the area on a rare foray into Maynooth territory, picking his spot to finish late on and give his side an unassailable twelve-point advantage.

Such a strong performance against formidible opposition will no doubt give the Trinity camp renewed confidence as they prepare for their league semi-final, and with the likes of Coughlan and Scricliffe in such good form, they have no reason not to be brimming with optimism.

around while kicking at face height and not look like an idiot.

I’m starting to wonder if the reason the girls were smiling at me had more to do with my incompetence than my attractiveness. But I tried damn it. AND my legs were fine in the morning. My ass however, was a different story. My buttcheeks hurt. I mean the actual solid meat of my ass cheeks was in pain. I didn’t think that could happen, it was three days before I was able to walk normally again.

But what a three days. That was some serious bumtoning. I’m thinking of going back. Why would someone put themselves through that again? Two words: Steel Peach.

If you know a sport I should be wasting my precious drinking time on, email my editor, and recovering paedophile: Manus ‘if you tell anybody, you’ll get in trouble’ Cronin at sports@universtiytimes.ie

won two of the three games, and then in Zimbabwe we drew the four-day game and lost the ODI series 2-1. We’re going to be in India from November 1st for 22 days at a training camp in Pune in preparation for the World Cup.

22 days? Wow, Is that indicative of how far the Irish game has come?

Definitely! It’s a great privilege to spend so long in such a top-class training camp, and the preparation we’re putting in for tours and tournaments is brilliant. Before the World Twenty20 we put in three weeks in Jamaica prior to the tournament which was hugely beneficial for us all.

It was good to see Ireland so competitive at the Worlds, you guys really could have had a go at England if it wasn’t for the elements...

Hi George, tell me about your arrangement with Somerset.

Senior Hurlers book semi-final spot TRINITY5-8

to feel less like the ministry of silly walks, and more like auditions for Street Fighter Turbo. You remember that character Dee-Jay? Of course not, you’re reading a sports column, you don’t play video games. You’re not a nerd. You’re a jock just like me. Yeah. I can totally spin

In the County Championship, the Ireland Cricket Writers’ Young Player of the Year 2010 award, and – most recently – an exclusive interview with the University Times; it’s been some year for George Dockrell! Deputy Sports editor Jack Leahy, who once survived four balls from George in a nets session, met him in the Buttery.

The President of Ireland Cricket when I was 15 was Arthur Vincent, a good friend of Brian Rose, who was then Director of Cricket at Somerset.

Brian was looking for spinners playing in Ireland and Arthur put me in touch with him. I went over a few times and trained with Jackie Berkinshaw and did a few sessions with the Somerset spinners. I got a feel for the place immediately, and after a bit of a patch without hearing from them, they got back in touch with me after the World Cup and obviously I was keen to join up with them.

Irish reporters enjoyed focusing on the trouble you gave Kevin Pietersen in that game – form aside, is he the best ODI player you’ve played against so far?

And what does this mean for international fixtures?

I suppose he would be up there with Eoin Morgan...

Ireland get preference – I’ll be spending the summer in Somerset and training and hopefully playing with them but I’ll be coming back for Ireland fixtures.

Speaking of Irishmen in the County Championship, Eoin Morgan is making his way Down Under today with England – how do you think he’ll cope with the toughest task in the Test arena?

I’m sure he’ll do very well, he’s an extremely talented player. It might take him a bit more time to establish himself in the longer form of the game but he’s such a good player that he’ll definitely make things work for himself.

Many people would say that if we’re going to keep our best players – the Eoin Morgans of the future - in green, we’re going to need to get test status. Do you think it’ll ever happen?

I think with the setup we have at the moment it’s definitely possible. Test status isn’t something which is going to come overnight, but hopefully we’ll get into the ICC Future Tours Program in the near future. This would give us the opportunity to face to the best teams in the world which would really improve the game in Ireland as well as bring in better sponsorship – this is what we’re going to need to further develop the whole structure in Ireland and prepare ourselves for test cricket.

It was unfortunate that we ended up going out like that because of the weather – we’d have loved to go on and have a crack at that England total.

We weren’t too happy with how that ended but that just happens sometimes in cricket.

You’d rate him as highly as KP? Championship to a higher standard in order to improve their game, and that’s part of the reason for the Irish team’s advances in recent years. If Ireland were to have test status we’d have no problem holding on to players, but at the same time I know the guys are fully committed to helping Irish cricket continue its development.

We’re talking about Test cricket in the longterm future of the game – but is there a longterm future for the test game itself?

Absolutely. There’s a lot of talk about Twenty20 being more entertaining and obviously it has attracted a wider fanbase, but test cricket is where the heart of the game is. Its fanbase – particularly in India, where they follow their cricket religiously – is going to make it hard to compete with that form in financial terms, but test cricket is so important to the game and if we get rid of that then the heart of the game goes with it.

On to more current affairs – what have the Irish team been up to recently?

As I said he’s such a talented player, he’s so skillful and has a great cricketing brain. I haven’t seen a lot of either of them yet but I rate them both equally highly. My prized wicket is definitely Ramaresh Sarwan.

All very illustrious names - were you guys overawed by their celebrity status in some way?

That’s not something that comes to mind when you’re at the crease – even at the World Twenty20, I found that I was concentrating on my plans and my game. In any case, that’s not an issue with us; I think we’re above that now. With the advancements in Irish cricket in recent years, we have big players playing for us now and when we get out there we don’t see anyone as above us.

George had to run at this point to one of his thrice-per-week gym sessions with the Irish team in the high-performance gym in DCU – another sign that Irish cricket has come on leaps and bounds in recent years.

Recently we were in Canada, followed by Zimbabwe. The Canada trip went quite well and we

Trinity men claim Mauritius Plate at Intervarsities Jack Leahy Deputy Sports Editor On a long Bank Holiday weekend of Hockey, Trinity Men’s won the Plate competition at the 2010 Irish Inter-varsities Tournament in Belfield, thrashing Queen’s University Belfast 6-0 in the Final.

In the ladies’ competition, Trinity were eliminated at the semi-final stage of the main Chilean Cup competition, falling just short with a combative performance in their 0-2 loss to University of Ulster.

Both the men’s and ladies’ teams got the weekend off to a bad start, with defeats against old rivals UCD in their respective group stages. Two drag-flick goals from Shane O’Donnell saw the hosts safely home in the men’s encounter, the home

side securing victory despite a warrior-like effort from Sean Flinn in the Trinity midfield. The ladies were soundly outplayed in their 0-1 defeat, but could have stolen a draw had midfielder Rachel Scott not hit the post with a late penalty stroke.

The ladies then made amends for their openinground defeat, earning hardfought wins over Queens and RCSI before securing their deserved semi-final berth by means of a walkover. Hayley O’ Donnell opened the scoring from a short corner in the 2-1 victory over the Belfast side, hitting home with a first-time sweep from the push-out position, with Kylie Deverell’s superb solo effort then clinching victory in the second half.

The encounter with RCSI was much more

straightforward, with goals from Eanna and Maebh Horan, Deverell, O’Donnell, and Scott easing their side into to the semi-finals with a 5-0 win following University of Limerick’s late withdrawal from the tournament. The ladies showed good form in the games following their opening defeat and more than earned their place in the Cup knock-out phases.

The men’s side went into their clash with UCC on Monday morning in desperate need of a win to retain their interest in the Cup competition, but found the Cork boys in no mood for facilitation. Efforts from Cian Speers and Roderick Beudeker, both of whom grew in stature as the weekend progressed, helped them secure a 2-2 in an end-to-end contest which could easily have swung either way.

Trinity thus went into their final group fixture against RCSI in need of a nine-point margain of victory to progress into the Plate semi-final. A nominally improbable task very quickly became easier, however, as the men’s side surged to a 4-0 lead after only ten minutes. A hat-trick from Stephen Roberts, a brace from the insatiable Beudeker, and further efforts from Roger Clarke, Freddie Hill, Douglas Montgomery, Daniel Ryan and Craig Moore tied up a 10-0 triumph in an affair that was so one-sided that it bordered on the ludicrous.

Both sides thus saw themselves amongst the competition on Tuesday morning. Thanks to a tip-off from Queen’s, the ladies were well prepared to deal with their opponents’ short-corner

tactics in their Cup semi-final with the University of Ulster, but a robust defensive effort was not enough to see them through and they eventually succumbed to a 0-2 defeat which ended their involvement in the tournament.

Despite finding themselves up against formidable semi-final opposition in the Ulster side, the men’s side managed to overwhelm their opponents and secure a 4-0 victory which bucked their opponents’ trend of fighting out close-fought encounters.

Momentum proved key in the Plate final clash as Trinity, who had progressively built on each performance, completely dominated their Belfast opponents from the very first minute. Charlie Pearmund and Henry Butler particularly stood out in a

clinical display whose foundations were enforced by a ruthless defense and impenetrable midfield. Butler’s attacking runs set a platform for strikes from Moore, livewire forward Andy Gray (2), and Speers before – fittingly- he rounded off the tournament’s scoring with a late solo effort which left the Queen’s defenders trailing in his wake.

Overall, performances from both Trinity sides were impressive, a declaration which is epitomised by the selection of ten Trinity hockey players in the Irish Universities Trial Squads.

Both sides will nonetheless be disappointed not to have pushed on further in their respective competitions.

Jack Hogan’s Premier League Miscellany Jack Hogan Armchair footballer Liverpoool, Liverpool, Liverpool. When will you ever learn? It’s the same old inconsistency on Merseyside as the Reds impressive 5-match unbeaten run came crashing to a halt at the Britannia Stadium recently. Despite a string of impressive victories, including an outstanding performance against Chelsea, the question of Roy Hodgson’s suitability to the Anfield job must once again be asked. Perhaps it is not a managerial problem but rather a lack of depth in the squad. Although if Gerrard and Torres can find some form, a top four finish isn’t out of the question.

Elsewhere it’s just another day, another dollar for Wayne Rooney (or £35,000 a day to be exact). The troubled superstar played it extremely cool in his recent contract negotiations. Putting pen

to paper on a new five-year deal and then taking a week’s holiday in Dubai.

Life can be so cruel! Despite United’s inconsistency on the pitch, they have shown that they aren’t totally dependent on Rooney up front. Both Berbatov and the horrendously named “little pea” Hernandez are showing some serious ability.

However, it’s usually in the new year that United hit their stride and if Sir Alex can bolster up the squad with a few January signings (and hopefully Gary Neville will do everyone a favour and just retire) don’t be surprised to see the Red Devils lifting a few trophies come May. Not much has changed in the capital.

West Ham are settling in nicely to their annual relegation battle while Arsenal, although playing some beautiful football, haven’t been ruthless enough at home, with West Brom and Newcatle

stealing points at the Emirates. Marouane Chamakh still hasn’t fully adjusted to the English game, it would appear.

Although the return of Thomas Vermaelen in defence should settle things down.

Meanwhile, Chealsea appear to be the same monumental super-power radioactive killing-force that they were last season. However Ancelotti will be extremely wary of dropping points in perfectly winnable games, a habit that made the previous title race a lot closer than it should have been. However this drop in form was due mainly to John Terry’s off-field canoodling.

Frivolity aside, it’s been a quality season so far with many shocks and upsets (not least Liverpool getting humiliated by the mighty Blackpool). There’s some seriously tasty pre-Christmas fixtures on the way so let’s sit back and enjoy.

As rumours circulate tabloids and their more reputable siblings alike that Wayne Rooney’s latest contract with Manchester United is worth a staggering ¤280,000 a week, Jack Leahy explores what this figure would mean for a Trinity student...

¤280,000 would provide: 176 students registered (at the current rate, at least) 1,120,000 hours/46,666 days/127 years of late fees for short-term loan books 300 Class Reps being trained in the Ritz Carlton in London for the weekend, with a four-course dinner included 100,000 cans of Devil’s Bit cider in the Pav 70,000 meal deals in the JCR 4,480,000 KopiKat credits 2 Student Travelcards for every TCD Undergrad with 1,333 spares Half of Trinity Undergrads on a massive class trip to Galway 57 years of Halls accommodation

Tuesday, November 16th 2010 | The University Times

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Timessports

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Inside

Jack Hogan’s Premier League Miscellany

Midleton outplay 1st XV in close contest TRINITY 1st XV 17 Midleton 1st XV 18 College Park Jack Leahy Deputy Sports Editor Late tries from prop James Gethings and fullback Tim McCoy left Trinity within a point of snatching an unlikely victory at College Park, but newlypromoted Midleton managed to hold on and reap the spoils of a controlling performance in a narrow 17-18 victory in this AIL Division 2 clash.

Full-back Jeff Hitchmough opened the scoring for the boys from Cork with a straightforward 10m penalty early on before centre Damian Smyth finished in the corner. Winger Alan Long added a third following Shane Hanratty’s controversial sin-binning to leave Trinity staring at a 13-0 half-time deficit which would have been worse, had Hitchmough not missed three opportunities to kick, late in the first half.

Captain Scott LaValla’s converted try early in the second half, gave Trinity early hope of a fightback before David Hurley finished for Midleton to leave the score at 18-7. McCoy and Gethings both finished off periods of sustained pressure to give outhalf Ciaran Wade the chance to overtake Midleton with a difficult conversion which just fell short, handing last year’s Division 3 semi-finalists a deserved win.

Trinity started well with an expansive game which almost bore fruit on several occasions through winger Hanratty’s strong and

intelligent running.

Midleton soon took control, however, as their forwards, marshaled by playmaker Eamonn Lane, launched a sustained assault on the Trinity defence, making significant ground in the process.

The home side could have taken the lead after Hitchmough’s opener had centre Conor Colclough managed to offload to winger Neil Hanratty five metres from the line, but they were made to pay for their missed opportunity as Glen Deacon’s barnstorming run into the Trinity 22 set a platform for Smyth to finish in the corner.

Midleton’s attacks were swift and dangerous, making effective use of the dummy runner as they looked to carve open a Trinity defence which was proving uncharacteristically lackadaisical.

Their cause was aided by a controversial decision from referee David O’ Brien, who after some delay awarded a yellow card to the elder Hanratty brother for an inocuous challenge deemed late by the touch-judge.

The visitors made full use of their numerical advantage, with Lane’s inside ball to Smyth giving the latter space to make a powerful 40m break into the Trinity 22 and create a three-on-one situation, with Neil Hanratty powerless to prevent winger Alan Long’s clincial finish in the corner. Hitchmough’s missed conversion, sandwiched between unconverted conversion and penalty efforts respectively, left his side with a deserved 13-0 lead at the break.

Hanratty Snr.’s return to the game in the second period gave Trinity a new impetus as he strove to find space

Last minute goal earns Colours draw TRINITY 2 UCD 2 College Park

The tight scoreline flattered DUFC in their AIL Division 2 clash against Midleton. Photo: Dargan Crowley-Long for himself and made some efforts of LaValla. The full- on their opponents, with they to finish the game vicimportant kicks to touch. back’s fourth miss of the a huge effort in the scrum torious. Midleton produced Having dragged his side into game was a relief for Trini- driving the opposition front a controlling display reinthe opposition 22, they were ty, who at this stage were al- eight behind their own line, forced by the efforts of Lane able to capitalise on some ready eleven points behind. giving them a crucial op- and the physicality of their strong scrummaging as LaDespite being sound- portunity with a 5m scrum. pack, making astoundingly Valla drove over from 10m to ly outplayed for most of the Pressure was sustained and few errors in a performance give his side hope. Wade, as- game, the home side man- Midleton were unable to pre- which more than merited suming kicking duties in the aged to conjure up a late vent Gethings from bulldoz- victory. Following a similarabsence of James O’ Dono- fightback which almost saw ing his considerable frame ly narrow 12-10 loss at Belghue, converted from under them snatch victory. LaVal- over the line to leave his side fast Harlequins the previous the posts to narrow Midle- la’s well-earned turnover within two points of victory weekend, Trinity sit in 11th ton’s lead to 13-7. gave Colclough the oppor- with less than a minute to place in the AIL Division 2 Hope was quickly dashed, tunity to break the line and play. Wade had the chance with one win and three dehowever, as Trinity’s new- offload to Galbraith, who to seal victory with the con- feats from four games. found attacking zeal gave drew his man and creat- version attempt, but his efMidleton the opportunity ed space for McCoy to race fort had neither the legs nor to catch the home side un- home and touch down. A the direction to trouble the awares on the counter-at- difficult conversion attempt scorers. While Trinity came 15 Tim McCoy tack. Hitchmough’s evasion was then missed by Wade, agonisingly close to steal14 Neil Hanratty of Paul Galbraith’s pursuit but Trinity were still within ing victory at College Park, 13 Conor Colclough and well-timed offload gave one score of victory at 12-18 it would have been an ex12 Paul Galbraith Hurley space to round the with five minutes left to play. tremely unfair reflection on posts and finish, despite the Trinity turned up the heat the general run of play were 11 Shane Hanratty

TRINITY

AIL Division 2

P

W

D

L

PD

B

Pts

1

Ballynahinch

5

5

0

0

149

4

24

2

UCD

5

5

0

0

55

2

22

3

Ballymena

5

4

0

1

68

5

21

4

Belfast Harlequins

5

3

0

2

12

4

16

5

Corinthians

5

3

0

2

52

3

15

6

Malone

5

3

0

2

30

3

15

7

Dublin University

5

2

0

3

21

4

12

8

Bective Rangers

4

3

0

1

8

0

12

9

Midleton

5

3

0

2

4

0

12

10

Terenure College

5

2

1

2

-12

1

11

11

Queens University

5

2

1

2

-16

1

11

12

Old Wesley

5

1

0

4

-45

2

6

13

Old Crescent

5

1

0

4

-39

1

5

14

DLSP

4

1

0

3

-64

1

5

15

Thomond

5

0

0

5

-114

1

1

16

Clonakilty

5

0

0

5

-109

0

0

10 Ciaran Wade 9 Michael McLoughlin (Johnny Iliff) 1 Paul McFeely 2 Mark Murdock (Dave Joyce) 3 James Gethings 4 Pierce Byrne 5 Colin McDonnell 6 Alan Mathews (Sam Bell) 7 Dominic Gallagher 8 Scott LaValla (c)

Hugh Clinch Ciaran Lawlor’s goal with the last kick of the game earned Trinity a 2-2 draw with UCD in the latest round of the College and Universities League after UCD blew numerous chances to seal a merited victory at College Park.

Trinity took the lead against the run of play in the after 20 minutes, Graham Conway stretching to convert James Connolly’s cross at the far post. The visitors drew level ten minutes later through Mark Langtry’s solo effort before clinching a deserved half-time advantage through a scrappy finish from centre-back Shane Massey.

To the hysteria of the home crowd, however, it was Trinity who had the final say, Lawlor keeping a cool head to finish after a speculative long ball from Dónal Ó Cofaigh was headed into his path in the 91st minute, with the referee calling time on the game as soon as the Trinity players had completed their euphoric celebrations.

UCD had the better of the first half, dominating possession and creating far more genuine chances than their city rivals, Intricate passes failed to find a hole in the Trinity defence, and the home side managed to hit their opponents on the break after 20 minutes, with Conway the first to react to the low cross creeping past the UCD centre-half.

The previously confident UCD side were visibly rattled by the surprise goal, but managed to regain their composure, pouring forward and testing the Trinity defence while limiting their

rivals to futile long-range efforts. Trinity seemed happy to let the visitors pass the ball around in their own half, but this tactic proved to be their downfall as leftwinger Langtry stormed down the wing uncontested and fired in a low effort which crept into the righthand corner of the Trinity net.

This setback seemed to ignite the home side, who pressurised their UCD counterparts for the rest of the half. They were met by calm heads, however, as the visitors upped their game to control the game from midfield with some fine passing.

Just before the half their assured play paid off as Samir Belhout’s lay-off from a long ball was, after an unaesthetic goal-mouth scramble, eventually turned in by Robbie McCreevy.

Trinity thus went in at halftime with a 2-1 deficit which, in truth, could have been worse.

This belief was strengthened by UCD’s start to the second half, Belhout firing just over having evaded the challenge of two Trinity defenders. McCreevy then produced the most entertaining moment of the game, latching on to a cross with an acrobatic overhead kick which was well-hit, albeit straight at the Trinity keeper.

Tyrone McNelis could and should have ended the game as a contest late on, breaking free of the Trinity backline before rounding the keeper and pulling the ball back from a difficult angle, with his pass narrowly escaping the efforts of the arriving UCD forwards.

But Trinity are nothing if not resolute and poured men forward for the last five minutes, huffing and puffing before eventually blowing down the door when Lawlor poked home from twelve yards.

Rough start for Water Polo team on Corrib Bay Trip TCD 7 – 10 Blackrock, TCD 9 – 12 Galway Bay David Cullinan Staff Writer Trinity made a shaky start to their first encounter of the weekend and their opponents took full advantage to go 5-1 up early on. A brave fightback was mounted in the second half, however, with captain Ryan Bartlett and Kevin Conway contributing greatly to the revival which all but eradicated lost ground to leave their side just a single goal behind at 6-7. The fightback was ultimately in vain, however, as the home side managed to regain composure and see out a 10-7 victory in a game in which Trinity were too often guilty of exposing themselves defensively by means of foolhardy offence.

The second of the two fixtures took place on the

following day against local side Galway Bay, also a constituent of the Corrib Bay club. Trinity started brightly as Frank O’ Connor found the back of the net seconds into the first half with a powerful shot from the half-way line.

Despite this strong start, the visitors missed numerous chances and were soon made to pay for their lack of opportunism as Bay managed to swiftly overturn the defect and leave Trinity in familiar territory at 1-5 down at the break.

In the final two quarters, Trinity’s wavering confidence surged once more and yet another fightback marshaled by captain Bartlett saw them – once more – draw within one point of their opponents at 9-10, but once again the home side managed to squeeze out their visitors and secure victory, this time by 12 goals to 9.

While Trinity will be happy with the noticeable

strides made by their more inexperienced players during the weekend on Corrib Bay and the reliable performances of Niall Maloney in goals, they will be worried by defensive frailties which ultimately came at the cost of a competitive edge in both games.

TRINITY

Ryan Bartlett (c) Nicolas Welaratne Jamie Togher Dan Sagatov David Cullinan Christopher Kelly-Rogers Paddy Higgins Niall Maloney Kevin Conway Paul McCann Raymond Reitling Graeme O’Brien Frank O’Connor UCD Goalkeeper Conor McGroarty takes control as Trinity’s Dónal Ó Cofaigh looks on during their 2-2 Colours draw. Photo: Dargan Crowley-Long