the University Observer

v o l u m e x v i i i · i s s u e v i i i · w w w . u n i v e r s i t y o b s e r v e r . i e

Belfield FM’s removal from SU would be “a large step backwards”

Copy Bureau not to re-open despite protest

opinion

Should uCd leave the uSi?

OTWO

committee and my pride has led me to hurt many people with whom I’ve shared wonderful friendships … Over the past week I’ve realised some truths about myself and I will do my best to learn from past mistakes in the execu-tion of my role as Auditor.”

A prominent member of Lawsoc, who wished to remain anonymous, in-dicated that elections for Lawsoc Audi-tor could, subject to UCD approval, now be held as early as next month. This source also maintained that the society was unlikely to disband over the con-troversy.

by KATe ROThweLL · DePUTy eDITOR

UCD Law Society Auditor Francis Mc Namara has described his behaviour as “arrogant and reckless” when ques-tioned by the University Observer re-garding the controversy which led to the resignation of nine members of the Law Society committee last week.

In an email sent to a member of the Lawsoc committee on January 15th, Mc Namara expressed his prefer-ence for that member as his successor as Lawsoc Auditor, as well as stating which other committee member he would prefer either as Vice Auditor or Treasurer; “In my opinion, the opti-mum result for next year would be you as Auditor with ... as your right hand.”

Mc Namara went on to imply that there was an agreement between him-self and Societies Officer Richard butler regarding his selection as next year’s Chairman of Societies Council, an elect-ed position; “Myself and Richard butler have reached an understanding and I will probably run for Chairman of Soci-eties Council as Stephen’s successor.”

Speaking to the University Observer, butler stated that he did not know to what Mc Namara was referring to and that no such ‘understanding’ existed. “There is no arrangement, understand-ing, agreement or any other form of outcome discussed, arranged or in any way planned for any position within the Societies Council for Mr Mc Namara, or any individual, nor could there be, as this is something that the Auditors vote on among themselves.” he went on to say that Mc Namara had already made a statement to him regarding the matter; “I have already accepted Mr Mc Namara’s statement to me that he inad-vertently phrased his email in a care-less manner, such as to allow a number of interpretations to be made from his comments.”

Mc Namara stated to the Univer-sity Observer that he had incorrectly phrased his comment regarding this ‘understanding’; “I mis-phrased, I be-lieved that we had come to an under-standing on how far I’d progressed as Auditor.” he continued by expressing regret for his actions; “I was arrogant and reckless; I didn’t appreciate my

by KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

Students’ Union President Pat de brún has confirmed that the SU Copy bureau will not be re-opening, despite a protest being held on January 25th against its closure. “This was not something that was done flippantly, it was nothing but a last resort.”

by KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

UCD’s student radio station, belfield FM, will no longer have a place within the Students’ Union should the new draft of the constitution pass a stu-dent body referendum in the next few months.

Students’ Union President Pat de brún supports the idea of having a student radio station on campus, but believes that it no longer has a place within the SU, stating, “we are in fa-

vour of belfield FM, we think it’s a good idea. It has a place on campus but we don’t think the place for it is within the Union.”

belfield FM Station Manager Peter branigan expressed his disappoint-ment at the news, “we feel that exiting the SU structure would be a large step backwards for the station and would not be beneficial for its volunteers. we also feel that it might discourage pro-spective students from coming to the University, instead choosing a univer-

sity with better media facilities.”De brún defended the move, stating

that the SU is unable to give belfield FM the attention it requires, “I don’t think there’s enough of a focus within the Union and I don’t think, with the nature of the Union, there ever will be a focus or resources put into it … a society structure would benefit it more and suit it more.”

he explained that when belfield FM was originally established, it was only intended to lie within the realms

of the SU for a couple of years before moving on and finding a home else-where, an idea that, he insists, “fell by the wayside”. The SU will continue to support belfield FM during its transi-tory process. however, under the new constitution, belfield FM will not have a constitutional status within the Stu-dents’ Union.

De brún cited belfield FM’s move to their new studio in the new Student Centre as a time to “solidify it in a home that is more suited to it … I believe that

home is within societies and we have tentative support for that to go ahead.”

No talks have taken place with So-cieties’ Officer Richard butler to date, which appears to have left the station in an uncertain state. According to bra-nigan, “the response from our staff has been overwhelmingly negative towards the news. Many are in first or second year and would have hoped to work with the station again next year, and are now left unsure of what next year’s structure will entail.”

UCD Law Society Auditor describes own behaviour as “arrogant and reckless”

Auditor of the Socialist workers Stu-dent Society, Karl gill was pleased with the turnout and level of interest at the protest, estimating there to have been up to 300 people present, “it was fan-tastic to see that people were angry and wanting answers.”

A motion was put to Union Council two weeks ago regarding rehiring the recently let go Copy bureau employees, but was rejected by a vast majority. The motion was put forward by gill and seconded by Auditor of the Inclusion, Participation, Awareness (IPA) Society and second year Social Science Class Rep, brian O’brien.

O’brien has since withdrawn his support from the cause after view-ing a youTube video of de brún and Campaigns and Communications Of-ficer brendan Lacey being “pulled out of their offices and heckled and being made speak in front of two to three hundred people.”

O’brien maintained that “it was a good protest, it got people out but you

cannot drag people out of their offices and make them speak … Pat shouldn’t have gotten the abuse he did, no one should abuse someone for taking a de-cision – he has to make hard decisions and that’s his job.”

De brún confirmed the extreme be-haviour, stating, “I was disappointed by a small minority who resorted to verbal abuse and name calling. I don’t think there is a place for that in the University and I think it undermined their protest.”

An anonymous employee of the Stu-dent Centre described the protest as being “more like a riot … it was some-thing I’ve never experienced before, what I heard was … swearing. I was a little bit scared, it just all suddenly hap-pened. I heard all the loud yelling and the swearing and I wouldn’t expect a protest to be like that.”

Following the protest, De brún re-leased an open letter to UCD students detailing the reasons behind the deci-sion and information about the Union’s current €1 million debt.

De brún explained his reasons for releasing the letter, “I felt that it was time to engage a bit more directly with students on the ground about the cur-rent financial situation because I’ve become very concerned that that cam-paign was spreading quite a bit of mis-information and exaggeration. I think that students deserve to be told exactly what the facts of the financial situation are and I wanted to lay it out in plain and simple terms, and ensure that it reached as many people as possible.”

The protesters suggested that the Union approach the University for fi-nancial support, an idea that was dis-missed by de brún in his letter. howev-er, when asked whether the University would be willing to consider bailing out the debt, a UCD spokesperson stated, “the University has been, and intends to be, fully supportive of the Students’ Union in addressing the resourcing is-sues, and providing input to the work which has been undertaken by the firm of professional accountants.”

UCD prepared to support SU

in “addressing the resourcing issues”

Seconder of motion to rehire Copy Bureau

employees withdraws support

Protest described as “more like a riot” by member of Student

Centre staff

SU President de Brún confirms that Copy

Bureau will notre-open

s p o r t

an IntervIew wIth ConnaCht’s

DaviD McSharry

OTWO Talks TO

Steven MOffatROddy dOyle · daRina allen CaThy davey · s Club

SU President Pat de Brún addresses the crowd at protest objecting to the recent closure of the SU Copy Bureau Photographer: Caoimhe McDonnell

The University Observer · 31 January 20122

Observer Newsnews@observer.ie

Two of highest paid university employees reject pay cut

by KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

The Institute of Public Administration (IPA) has become a recognised col-lege of UCD, following a reception to mark the event was held in Newman house, St Stephen’s green on January 30th. Minister for education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn was the guest of honor at the event.

According to an IPA spokesperson, “our joint vision is that by combining the experience, capacity and reputation of the IPA and UCD, Ireland can create an internationally recognised centre of teaching and research excellence in the sphere of government, where top lead-ers from the Irish and european public

sector and further afield come to devel-op their skills and competencies.”

Following the recognition of the IPA as a UCD college, the IPA will contin-ue to operate as an independent body, with its own board and governance arrangement. however, the partner-ship with UCD is expected to provide new opportunities for IPA’s clients in Ireland and internationally in the ar-eas of joint academic programmes, joint research activities, joint deliv-ery on international programmes, and the sharing of technology, library and other facilities.

The IPA was founded in 1957 and is the national centre for the development of best practice in public administra-

tion and public management. It pro-vides education and training specific to the needs of public servants, although this training is not provided exclusively to them.

An IPA spokesperson stated that the reasoning behind the partnership be-tween the IPA and UCD is that “Ireland needs to ensure that its public service is leading global practice. This is cen-tral to national welfare and competi-tiveness. Developing new capacity and skills is critical to the future of the Irish public service, and it is anticipated that the new IPA-UCD partnership will play an important role in supporting the transformation of the Irish public ser-vice.

“UCD and IPA are ideal partners to pursue this common vision. UCD’s strengths complement the mission of the IPA. UCD has academic expertise in key areas such as business, law, eco-nomics, finance, social sciences, com-puter science, public health, planning, and civil engineering, which will allow the IPA to also act as a gateway to lead-ing edge knowledge and research that can provide the Irish public service with new insights. On a very practical level, all students in future enrolling in IPA programmes will receive their awards from UCD. For new IPA stu-dents, the access to pathways of learn-ing available through a major universi-ty such as UCD will be a major bonus.”

IPA becomes recognised college of UCD

by ChLOe DUANe

A SIPTU ballot proposing strike ac-tion for members of the UCD Students’ Union’s staff, in response to the SU’s job cuts and the closure of the Copy bu-reau, was refused last week.

President of the SIPTU education branch in UCD, Dr. Kieran Allen, stated that “people have a variety of tactics to deal with injustice, one of them is strike action, one of them is encouraging soli-darity from students, one of them is publicity. People obviously decided they didn’t wish, in the Students’ Union at that point in time, to engage in strike action.”

however, the trade union in UCD is not opposed to taking this issue further until a solution is found. “we will be pressing the college authorities to en-gage and deal with this problem … There are many disabled students who cannot go across the road to a private shop to get their photocopying done, there are many people who don’t have computers, there are many people that find, for ex-ample, that printing out individually at home is more expensive, and there [are] many people, if you like, that don’t have the same amount of time.”

Following the protest held on wednesday, Students’ Union President Pat de brún stated that the SU had no other alternative and could not rein-state the Copy bureau. Dr Allen stated that the language used by de brún “was the language used by Margaret Thatch-er back in the eighties. There are always alternatives … you have to look at your budget and decide what is essential.

“There is a pattern emerging in UCD, under the impact of the economic crisis. I think there are some elements of the University that wish to use this opportunity to outsource or to priva-tise what they would consider non-es-sential services … we have the copy ser-vices being removed, or their attempt to remove it, the next target is the Main Restaurant. There is a proposal cur-rently underway that the Main Restau-rant will be privatised.”

he also stated that this is not only an SU issue, but also one that the Univer-sity itself is responsible for. “The Stu-dents’ Union have a responsibility in terms of how they spend their money. I believe money has gone missing and there is a deficit and so on, that’s up to students to sort out, but so too does the University. The University appointed an administrator who was responsible for the accounts … now if that is the case the University cannot wash its hands of it, and nor can it wash its hands of the fact that there is a vital service that stu-dents need that is being withdrawn.”

SIPTU strike action refused

by DAVID FARReLL

Three of the eight employees in Irish universities on an annual remunera-tion of over €200,000 have responded to Minister for education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn’s request to voluntarily lower their salary to that of the recently set pay ceiling, with one indicating an intention to make a voluntary waiver of a portion of salary and two declining.

Minister Quinn set the €200,000 pay ceiling for future appointments in a letter sent out to the chairpersons of Ireland’s seven universities in July 2011. According to the Department of education and Skills, Quinn stated that employees “whose current salary is in excess of the relevant pay ceilings would be requested to make a volun-tary waiver of salary of fifteen per cent, or by a lesser amount if the application of the full fifteen per cent reduction would bring their salary level to below the applicable pay ceiling.”

This new cap of €200,000 is cur-rently exceeded by 105 academics across the country. Of the 105, 95 are Academic Medical Consultants, a ma-jority of whom are jointly paid by the hSe and their university. A Depart-ment of education and Skills spokes-person confirmed that excluding aca-demic medical consultants, there are currently eight university employees on

annual remuneration over €200,000.NUI Maynooth and DCU are the

only two universities who employ no staff members earning over the pay-cap. Of the remaining five, University of Limerick had seven Academic Medi-cal Consultants, while NUI galway and UCC paid a number of Academic Medi-cal Consultants and the heads of their University over €200,000.

both UCD and Trinity College were the only institutions to pay staff other than their heads or Academic Medi-cal Consultants over the cap. These staff are, according to a Department of education and Skills spokesperson “appointed under the terms of a frame-work agreed between the universities and the higher education Authority, which allows universities, in very lim-ited and exceptional circumstances, to depart from Ministerially approved pay scales” which is set out in Section 25(5) of the Universities Act, 1997.

Top academics, including UCD Pres-ident hugh brady, have claimed that the cap will hinder the efforts of uni-versities to hire top calibre candidates.

when questioned regarding the possibility of capping the salaries of staff that are not heads of Schools or Academic Medical Consultants, a UCD spokesman remarked, “The university does not comment on individual con-tracts of staff.”

UCD announce partnership with leading biotechnology companyby AOIFe bROPhy

UCD and elan Corporation plc recently announced a partnership that will cre-ate several initiatives to develop bio-technological research. elan is a Dub-lin-based pharmaceutical company founded in 1969.

As part of the initiative, an inter-disciplinary chair in the ‘business of biotechnology’ will be established. This will involve collaboration between the Smurfit School of business and the UCD School of Science. elan will also sponsor two post-doctoral scholarships and run a series of lectures that will discuss the development of the global business of biotechnology.

“Rapid advancements in biology, computational application and diag-nostics combined with the globalisa-tion of the biotechnology industry re-quire future business leaders to have the skills and expertise to manage a portfolio of assets within the environ-ment of a dynamic and ever changing risks/reward equation,” said elan Chief

executive Officer, Kelly Martin.Mr. Martin went on to discuss the

need for particular expertise when working with medical products. Le-gal, global market and environmental considerations need to be taken into account when pursuing a career in biotechnology. “business leaders will need to balance complex and multi-dimensional considerations such as patient requirements and personalised medicine, which needs to take into ac-count genetic markers and scientific discovery that can be accelerated by ad-vancing approaches to drug discovery. The effective management of complex regulatory and legal frameworks, along with global pricing and reimbursement will also be a prerequisite to success.”

“elan’s commitment will enable us to fuse the best thinking and skills within the University, which includes our sci-ence, business and medical schools. we expect the creation of europe’s first in-terdisciplinary chair in the ‘business of biotechnology’ to stimulate innovation right across campus,” said UCD Presi-

dent hugh brady.The programme will run for ap-

proximately seven years and is expect-ed to create a competitive edge for the Irish pharmaceutical market; “as an Irish-based neuroscience biotechnol-ogy company that operates on a global scale, we understand the myriad op-portunities and challenges as they are part of our everyday journey. Navigat-ing these complexities and combining the interdisciplinary decision-making process across business, clinical and scientific disciplines will be essential for the long-term, future success of elan,” stated Mr. Martin.

“we, as a company, are committed to being leaders in how to manage within the biotechnology industry perspec-tive and are delighted in this instance to share both financial support and experience with UCD,” concluded Mr. Martin.

It is expected that elan will donate in excess of €3 million to the project, some of which will go towards the com-pletion of the new Science hub.

UCD Dance Society perform at Refreshers’ Day in the Astra Hall Photographer: Brian O’Leary

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 3news

News iN Brief

by JACK wALSh

Refreshers’ Day a successUCD held its annual Refreshers’ Day event on February 24th. Ninety-five clubs and societies were represented at the event, which is a continuation of Fresh-ers’ week, held in Semester One, and is facilitated for the entire student body.

Chairman of the Societies Council, Stephen whelan stated that “the event was well promoted, and in my opinion was the most successful Refreshers’ Day we have run here on campus. A number of societies are also actively en-gaged in this year’s Community week at the minute, which no doubt helped us promote Refreshers’ Day to as wide an audience as possible.”

whelan went on to highlight the event’s importance in UCD’s social calendar, “Societies and clubs are a vi-tal part of the university experience, not to mention personal development. Refreshers’ Day provides our students from overseas, who are just starting in UCD, with an opportunity to expe-rience firsthand the wide and diverse range of societies and clubs available to them during their time in belfield. It is also a great chance for people who may have missed out in the first semester to try something new.”

Students who could not attend are reminded that they can join clubs and societies at any stage of the semester.

health Promotions Committee cooking competitionThe health Promotions Committee (hPC) in conjunction with UCD Stu-dents’ Union and Student Advisors have launched the annual student cooking competition. The competition, which has been run for various years by the hPC, aims to promote awareness of ways of making cost-effective, healthy food, with various prizes, including en-try into the Student Cookbook, which is handed out to all first and second year students at the beginning of term.

A cooking demonstration took place in the Student Centre on January 23rd. The final submission deadline is Febru-ary 2nd, which ties in with a final dem-onstration and cook-off on February 14th.

SU Campaigns and Communications officer brendan Lacey has endorsed the idea, stating that “it’s something just to show students that there are actually quite healthy meals you can make on a budget and it’s particularly in their in-terest to come together with one or two friends and make a couple of dishes that are really good for you.”

Lacey went on to say that “we don’t do enough as a community in UCD and that’s something we’re working on, something I’ve always worked on, try-ing to create a little bit more of an open community feel around UCD.”

The competition is open to all stu-dents and staff.

UCD Ad Astra AcademySixty-five students have been presented with scholarships from the UCD Ad Astra Academy. The scholarships are awarded in recognition of exceptional achievements and talents in scholar-ship, sport, and the performing arts. The awards were presented by the President of UCD, Dr hugh brady, at an inaugural ceremony in O’Reilly hall.

UCD Ad Astra Academy scholars receive specialised supports to develop their talents, individual academic men-toring, a programme of specific Acad-emy activities and a bursary covering fee remission, reduction of on-campus accommodation costs, and a stipend.

“The UCD Ad Astra Academy offers unique opportunities and supports to a diverse group of high-achieving and highly talented students,” said the Reg-istrar and Deputy President of UCD and Director of the UCD Ad Astra Academy, Professor Mark Rogers.

“The university recognises excep-tional students when they join, as well as those who develop their talents while studying … Through membership of the Academy, students displaying elite potential to international standards in academic pursuits, sports or perform-ing arts are encouraged and supported to develop their talent further.”

Ad Astra Scholarships are awarded to students when they accept a place in an undergraduate programme or as they progress through their studies at the University, based on subsequent performance.

by DeNIS VAUghAN

UCD Free education for everyone (Fee) have voiced their indigna-tion following UCD Students’ Union President, Pat de brún, announcing his intention of putting a motion to SU Council regarding the Union’s stance on free education.

Should the referendum pass, the SU would be mandated to repre-sent the majority’s views. National Treasurer of Fee, Suzanne Lee, has stated that “this coming semester, I can’t imagine that the two of us are going to see eye to eye.”

Last semester, Dublin City Uni-versity (DCU) held a similar ref-erendum, in which students voted overwhelmingly in favour of free fees. because the referendum was conducted without provision for the transfer of votes it was found to be in breach of DCU SU’s constitution and as a result the mandate was de-clared void. Loan schemes, full fees and graduate taxes were amongst the alternative methods of funding for education that students had the option of voting for.

Lee acknowledged that another increase in fees was probable, “I would say they will [rise]. when all the government is getting is one march a year they know they can do what they like. For a while there was a little wave of occupations and now there seems to be no mention of anyone doing anything, which is

a bit worrying.”President of USI, gary Redmond,

echoed Lee’s sentiments, “obviously we’re in a very difficult financial position at the moment. In the short term I don’t see fees being abolished because of the fiscal situation that we’re in. I think we have a Minister for education who is committed, if he could, to abolishing fees in the morning but I don’t think he could even if he wanted to.”

De brún defended his decision, stating, “I one hundred per cent believe in free education as the best model for third level funding and that it should come through progressive taxation … at the same time, that has been our policy for a number of years and even though we’ve campaigned, and campaigned very well I believe, for each of the last number of years we have still seen successive increases in the Student Contribution [Charge].”

“whatever the Union’s policy is, as decided by students, we would do everything we can to lobby the gov-ernment and fight against any in-creases, but at the same time I think it’s time we look at the various dif-ferent funding options that are on the table.”

Should a referendum take place and reverse UCD SU’s policy, a mo-tion can be put forward at the next USI congress to have USI’s overall policy altered. The next congress is scheduled to happen in April.

Fee condemn SU change of stance on free education

Proposed new consti-tution to be releasedby KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

UCD Students’ Union’s draft of a new constitution is due to become avail-able to students this week. Among the changes introduced are a mandatory referendum as to whether the SU should be affiliated with the USI, a change in the class rep structure, and the elimina-tion of two Sabbatical positions.

The referendum deciding whether the SU should affiliate with USI would be constitutionally expected to take place every four years. Should the con-stitutional referendum pass, Students’ Union President Pat de brún stated that he would expect the USI referen-dum to take place in the “earlier part of the four years … there’s an appetite out there for it.”

Under the current constitution, there are a certain number of Class Reps elected, based on class sizes, who represent their classes at the fortnightly Union Council, as well as organising social events and assist-ing with internal class issues. Should the new draft pass, the same number of Union Reps would be elected, who would in turn appoint an indefinite number of Class Reps. The Union Reps would represent their classes at Coun-cil whereas the Class Reps would deal with direct class issues and, despite their informal appointment, have con-stitutional status.

According to de brún, “Union Coun-cil Reps will be the ones that represent at Union Council and discuss Union policy and make Union policy, and keep Officers accountable … the idea behind Union Council is to form policy, it’s not there for discussing a broken water fountain or an issue with the vending machines and that’s where the College Councils come in. All the Class Reps and the Union Council Reps within a

particular college will be there to dis-cuss those issues, and if they need to be brought to Union Council then, they’ll be brought there.”

The position of Campaigns and Communication Officer would cease to exist under the new constitution. A shifting of responsibilities will also take place, for example, the responsi-bility of Class Reps, which at this point lies with the C&C Officer, will move to the Undergrad education Officer as they will have a smaller workload due to their no longer having a responsibil-ity to postgraduate students. Similarly, national campaigns will be the Presi-dent’s responsibility and smaller, local campaigns will be that of the welfare and equality Officer.

De brún insists that the changes are an improvement on the current system, “I see this as an improvement, a rationalisation, and it gives the right workload to each officer; whereas now I think some officers have more in their workload than other officers.”

The elected position of ents Offi-cer will be replaced by a Professional entertainment Manager, who will be recruited as a staff member due to too large an unaccountable financial bur-den being placed on the role of ents Officer at present, “there is so much fi-nancial responsibility given to the ents Officer because, by the very nature of it, you are dealing with big numbers and it’s a challenge to try and make that money back … the President currently doesn’t have much power over the ents Officer because we’re all elected just the same, by students.”

De brún confirmed that the posi-tion of ents Officer has too much free reign, so the introduction of an enter-tainment Manager will make the office more professional, without losing the focus of ents.

by KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

Restaurant and hospitality service pro-vider, Kylemore Services group, are no longer planning on donating money to the welfare Fund, but will instead set up their own separate fund linked to the Students’ Union welfare Office.

Students’ Union President Pat de brún explained that instead of a direct contribution to the fund, Kylemore will cater to the requirements of students in need, which can range from a pass for free food in outlets across campus for the year, to financial assistance.

The initiative was confirmed last week, and according to de brún, “there was a willingness there on Kylemore’s part to get it in place and operating by the end of this year … I think it’s a nice [idea] because it’s a very obvious contribution to someone in financial need as opposed to handing money over … They are still displaying a willingness to engage with us and to assist in student activities. I’m hopeful that it does come through.”

Kylemore change Welfare support plan

Residences Ball cancelled

The applications will be made based on Students’ Union welfare Officer Ra-chel breslin’s assessment of their cir-cumstances, “some people are better going to the welfare Fund, sometimes the welfare Fund applications have closed.”

No limit has been finalised on the number of applications that can be put

forward, “so we’re going to send in as many applications as we can and hope for the best, but they do seem commit-ted,” says de brún.

De brún also recently received a price comparison list between current food operators in UCD and their former counterparts, which was compiled by UCD Commercial Manager, gary Moss.

“This comparison does show that there hasn’t been an increase but I’m still looking in to whether the list of goods is comprehensive, is it cover-ing everything that is on sale and was on sale … I believe there is one [outlet] which was not there yet,” de brún stat-ed in relation to the Pulse Café in the health Sciences building.

by KATIe hUgheS · NewS eDITOR

The harry Potter-themed Residences ball, which was set to take place on February 1st, has been cancelled.

According to Students’ Union wel-fare Officer, Rachel breslin, the event was cancelled due to slow ticket sales, “tickets had been on sale for a few days and it was coming to the point where we had to confirm acts and pay for acts. we would have had to pay for the dinner, so we were coming to the point where

our costs were increasing significantly. we just didn’t want to run an event that wouldn’t break even.” Forty tickets had been sold, and deposits were held for twenty.

The ball was originally expected to take place before Christmas, but ac-cording to breslin, there had not been sufficient time to advertise the event.

The purpose of the ball was to al-low students living on campus to have an event to go to together as a house or apartment, “so they would have an

event that they would remember to-gether because a lot of the time, and I know myself, I wouldn’t really see the people I lived with in first year any-more, even though I got on really well with them. It’s something that you could remember that you did together as a house, particularly for interna-tional students who don’t have a faculty ball, because a lot of their friends would be living on residence with them. we thought there would be a market there and tried to see if it was feasible, and we

didn’t want to run it at a loss.”breslin expressed disappointment

that the event had to be cancelled, but maintained that another event aimed at students living on campus would be organised instead, “I would have loved to have seen it happen, but it just means we’ll do something else that’s residenc-es orientated instead … I think we did try our best but the interest just wasn’t there.”

Students who purchased tickets will receive a full refund.

The University Observer · 31 January 20124 news

by NIAMh hyNeS

February 25th saw the launch of the Cervical Cancer Vaccine Programme in UCD as a part of Fresh Start week, which took place on campus for the first time last week. The vaccination is being offered for €299, which stands at close to a fifty per cent discount.

Fresh Start week was held as an expansion of health week, which was held in previous years. It was moved to the start of the year in recognition of students making New year’s Resolu-tions.

Students’ Union welfare Officer, Rachel breslin explained that the week was divided into four sections: healthy

iNterNatioNalNews iN Briefby CATheRINe MURNANe

Free academic e-books for five American universities400 students from various disciplines across five American universities will be given the opportunity to use free e-books as part of their academic studies. This pilot initia-tive, which has already proven successful in schools such as Indiana University, aims to provide a straightforward, cost-efficient way for students to attain access to academic reading materials.

The Associate Vice-President of the Uni-versity of Virginia, Michael McPherson, wel-comed not only the economic, but also aca-demic advantages of using e-books instead of printed textbooks. Mr McPherson noted that through the use of e-books, “instructors can annotate portions of the text for all students to see, and can enable students to share their annotations with the class”.

Students involved in the scheme will be provided with e-texts formatted by Mcgraw-hill, which can then be accessed by the Courseload reader from any computer, smart-phone or tablet. The Courseload software also allows for students to print a hardcopy of the e-text for a fee, should they wish to do so. Should the pilot scheme prove successful, the universities involved will consider introduc-ing this model on a permanent basis, with stu-dents paying a discounted fee for access to the software and the materials it provides.

The students taking part in this pilot scheme are currently studying at the Universi-ty of Minnesota, the University of wisconsin, the University of Virginia, Cornell University and the University of California berkeley.

UCLA keeping theft at bayIn response to high rates of laptop theft at the University of California, Los Angeles, a new, free and updated form of security has been in-troduced to protect students from further theft.

The decision was made in response to statis-tics released by the University’s Police Depart-ment, UCPD, which stated that 160 laptops had been reported as stolen by students in 2011.

This security software is made up of a vari-ety of new features, such as a gPS tracking sys-tem, which is activated and controlled by the individual student themselves. when a laptop is stolen, the owner can activate an alarm on the laptop, which causes a siren to resonate from the sound system when it is turned on.

The owner also has the option of locking down their laptop from another computer if they feel that their personal information is at risk.

The new software provides for laptops that are mislaid by displaying the owner’s contact informa-tion on the login screen, in an attempt to assure the return of the laptop to its original owner.

Though the new software can be down-loaded free of charge by students and staff alike, the university will pay $5,000 a year for its upkeep. This fee is currently being covered by the Office of Insurance and Risk Manage-ment, who are expected to continue covering the costs for the next number of years.

Mr Adams is confident that as the number of users of the software increases, the less UCLA will be targeted by thieves.

UbC Vancouver seeks to strengthen its non-aca-demic misconduct policyUbC Vancouver has begun to implement new procedures to ensure that their students act responsibly not only in their studies, but also socially. The decision was made in light of the success of a new approach to discipline, which has already been implemented on the campus of UbC Okanagan.

This new approach to discipline bypasses the formal hearing procedure that exists under the current model, providing students with the opportunity to accept responsibility for their ac-tions themselves. Students will now liaise with a representative from the Vice President’s Student Office, where they will be given the opportu-nity to consider ways to make amends for their actions. University Counsel at UbC, hubert Lai, is confident that ninety per cent of cases will be capable of being dealt with under this model.

however, more severe cases will also be pro-vided for under the newly created ‘President’s Non-Academic Misconduct Committee’. This committee, whose members consist mainly of students, will take on a much more investiga-tive approach into the issues at hand than the previous hearing committee, which took on a ‘prosecutor – defender’ format.

Although the majority of academics at UbC have welcomed the new procedures, students have expressed concerns that under these new procedures, those who display more remorse will be shown more leniency. “who knows if they will be stimulated to do exactly what they did again?”, questioned a fourth year student at the college.

It is hoped that the new policy will be for-mally introduced in September 2012.

Cervical Cancer Programme launched during Fresh Start Week

NovaUCD company shortlisted for Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Award

eating, exercise, sexual health, and mental health in order to cover the var-ious resolutions students had under-taken; the objective behind this was to “help students pick one or more of these areas and help them make and keep a healthy habit in that area, or even to give them an idea for a kick-start to a healthier 2012.”

The events organised for Fresh Start week included wheelchair bas-ketball, a movie night for first years,

and a campus-wide survey on sex and sexual health. “The welfare Crew gave out fresh fruit, there was a live cookery demonstration in the Student Centre with the health Promotions Commit-tee and a talk by bodywhys”. A harry Potter themed quiz was held, which at-tracted 300 students and raised €1,200 for bodywhys.

Student feedback from the week has been positive according to breslin, “I have had several students come in

to me because something in the week highlighted and raised awareness on an issue that they themselves are affected by or suffering from, and they hadn’t known who to talk about it to before.”

There are plans for a road safety week and an information campaign aiming to help students secure a part-time job at the end of the year. The next welfare campaign to be launched is Sexual health, Awareness and guid-ance (ShAg) week.

by SARA hOLbROOK

UCD hosted a CAO Information Clinic on January 21st. This is the first year this type of event was held, and it was attended by approximately 350 students.

both mature and second level students participated in the day, with UCD staff present to answer questions before the CAO application closes on February 1st. Programme stands were set up to give students course-specific guidance. Three sessions were held throughout the day – a morning ses-sion for mature students and two after-noon sessions for school leavers.

UCD Registrar, Prof. Mark Rogers, introduced each of the sessions, and this was followed by a presentation from Irish Times correspondent brian Mooney and talks by UCD staff.

Student Recruitment Manager, Kathy Murphy, explained that the event was held to allow students to get first-hand help with the CAO application process. “A lot of times mature students want to come in, for a one-to-one and maybe have a chat with admissions, and that’s what really drove us and then we decided to open up the second and third session for school leavers.”

Ms. Murphy stated that the mature student session was “extremely well attended” and explained that there was no plan for the event to be held on a larger scale as the lower numbers “meant [students] could come in, sit down and go through their personal queries and they were being answered. That’s very valuable for people who have that type of query.”

Many students from outside of Dublin, as well as several international students, attended the event. “we were surprised, I suppose with one or two coming from both europe and england because it was only really a session for an hour and a half … it wasn’t an Open Day as such.”

Overall, the pilot event was consid-ered “very successful … and [we] would be encouraged to do it again.”The society plans to send more teams to the championships again next year, when it will be taking place in berlin.

UCD hosts first CAO Information Clinic

by SARA hOLbROOK

UCD spin-out company based in No-vaUCD, wattics Ltd, was announced as a finalist for the Application of Re-search and Development category in the Irish Times InterTradeIreland In-novation Awards 2012 last Friday.

wattics has developed a “smarter metering system”, which manages a business’ energy consumption using a single metering sensor clipped onto the main electricity switchboard. This system can be used to identify the en-ergy use of individual appliances or machines, allowing businesses to iden-tify energy inefficiencies and take mea-sures to significantly reduce their elec-tricity bills.

Dr Antonio Ruzzelli, Anthony Schoofs and Alex Sintoni founded the company as a spin-out from UCD’s School of Computer Science and Infor-matics, and the CLARITy Centre for web Sensor Technologies. Jurys hotel group, KPMg, OPw and Norfish Ltd are currently among wattics’ clients.

Co-founder & CeO Dr Antonio Ru-

zzelli expressed his delight at reach-ing the final, “being shortlisted for the Irish Times InterTradeIreland Inno-vation Awards 2012 is a fantastic team achievement. It recognises and vali-dates the hard work and dedication of everyone associated with the establish-ment of our young Irish start-up com-pany. wattics is a game changer in the energy management market and aims to be rolled out worldwide. Our unique and powerful software technology is currently saving thousands of euro for our clients.”

he continued by explaining the ben-efits and accessibility of the system, “it can be applied in businesses around the world to assist them in understand-ing, managing and ultimately reducing their energy consumption. It requires no complex retrofitting, no appliance sub-metering and no wiring. A single clip-on meter or sensor combined with wattics’ software technology is all that is needed.”

The Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards seek to acknowl-edge and further the best service,

product or operational innovations in Ireland. Shortlisted finalists receive a €10,000 communications package in Innovation Magazine and an iPad with a one year subscription to the Irish Times ePaper. The overall winner will receive a communications and adver-tising package worth €150,000.

InterTradeIreland Strategy and Policy Director, Aidan gough stated, “companies that embrace an ongoing culture of innovation are more likely to grow and to sustain growth. The high standard and diverse range of entries to this year’s awards from public and private sectors, and from businesses of all sizes, is extremely encouraging and evidence that innovation as a growth process is being embraced by more and more businesses across the island … These awards honour those who are leading the way with their pioneering work.”

winners in each category, as well as an overall winner who will be selected from the six category winners, will be announced at a ceremony on February 28th.

Belfield FM will lose the support of the Students’ Union if the new Constitution passes its referendum See front page for full story

Competitors warm up for Fresh Start Week’s wheelchair basketball game Photographer: Rachel Breslin

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 5

Observer Featuresfeatures@observer.ie

Ireland is facing a poten-tially pivotal moment in its relatively short history, as it seeks to balance national interests with attempts to find its place in a european Union struck by crisis. years of incredible Irish growth

and development, no doubt boosted by european integration, have come to a grinding halt, to be replaced by austeri-ty measures and re-emerging questions concerning the legitimacy of outside interference.

Paul gillespie, former Irish Times european correspondent and UCD lec-turer in Politics, says that Ireland’s ap-proach to the european Union, under its various guises, has always been gov-erned by both Anglo-Irish relations, as well as “a european dimension to Irish nationalism.” gillespie believes that Sean Lemass’s opening of negotiations for european membership in 1962 was motivated both by a desire to avoid be-coming isolated from britain, who had opened negotiations in 1961, and also from a natural tendency to look to eu-rope as a “counter-balance to britain.”

Political motivations behind Ire-land’s involvement in european af-fairs cannot be ignored yet, then as now, economic concerns were also a key driver towards integration. Dan-iel Thomas, Director of UCD’s Dublin european Institute, outlines Ireland’s reliance on trade with britain as the overriding concern for the Irish gov-ernment. “[Ireland] had political inde-pendence decades earlier but there was still economic dependence on great britain, and joining the economic com-munity was a way to diversify Ireland’s markets,” he says, while also pointing out that, if Ireland had not followed britain’s lead in joining this european market, Anglo-Irish trade could have suffered significantly. “In terms of the economic welfare of Irish citizens, there is no question that being a mem-ber of the eU was a huge consideration for all these multinational corporations that have been investing in Ireland for the last twenty-five years.”

The primacy of economic reasons and Anglo-Irish relations is echoed by Anthony Coughlan, former lecturer at Trinity and director of the National Platform for eU Research and Infor-mation Centre, a non-governmental, openly ‘eurosceptical’ organization. however he, in contrast, believes that the levels of integration today go far beyond what Lemass could have envis-aged, and are at the root of Ireland’s current financial woes. “Lemass was in a difficult position as we were heavily dependent on britain at the time,” he says. “but I am fairly certain that he didn’t envisage that the eU would de-velop the way that it has, into running most of our policies and now proposing the exchange of intimate details con-

cerning national budgets in the context of a monetary union.”

The current eurozone crisis has been used by Coughlan and many others who have taken a consistently eurosceptic stance, to suggest that membership of the european Union is not in Ireland’s best interest. Cough-lan argues that the loss of control over monetary matters is the most evident manner in which european policy has hurt Ireland.

“Our extremely competitive inde-pendent Irish currency prior to joining the eurozone gave us the Celtic Tiger. The loss of control over our interest rate made our Celtic Tiger boom and turned it into a bubble which burst and caused the consequent slump,” he says.

“The european Central bank forbade us to let any Irish bank go bust and therefore required us to pass on the bad debts to the Irish taxpayers. This was the result of european Central bank policy and an independent Irish government would not have gone down

that road.”For Thomas, national governments

are just as culpable for the current crisis as any supranational interfer-ence. “For years, national governments took credit when things went right and blamed brussels when things went wrong. That pattern is now coming back to haunt us because people don’t see the way in which europe is use-ful,” he says, pointing to the manner in which Irish government officials often

misrepresented and, arguably, mis-managed Ireland’s economy during the boom years.

gillespie also highlights national government policy as a contributing factor to Ireland’s precarious posi-tion, particularly the effect neglect-ing alliances with similarly sized eU states had on negotiations within the eU. “The network of alliances that are necessary for a small state to be heard in a european setting fell away during 2001/2002, coinciding with the prop-erty boom really,” he says. “This is a big problem because [these alliances] ensure that, if you’re getting deeper integration, there is a balance between the institutions that suited the smaller states and the emerging system.” Re-gardless of who is to blame, the euro-zone project is teetering close to col-lapse. Negotiations concerning a fiscal pact continue but it remains unclear if the euro can survive into the next year.

The prospect of a eurozone collapse is welcomed by Coughlan, who views

the loss of monetary controls eurozone membership enforced, no matter its af-fects on the economy, as symptomatic of the manner in which membership of the eU conflicts with Irish democracy. he argues that with Irish law increas-ingly initiated at the eU level, an arena where “Irish people make up only a tiny handful,” the eU suffers from a democratic deficit that de-legitimises the structure.

“This is not democracy,” he says. “Democracy requires a demos, a people who can identify with the community and communicate with each other. The most obvious point is that there is no common language to communicate through [at a european level]. This cre-ates the fundamental flaw of the euro-pean project in that there is no euro-pean demos and there therefore can be no european democracy.”

The issue of democracy is problem-atic and is certainly worth exploring,

particularly at a time when Irish citi-zens are being asked to make substan-tial sacrifices. Thomas does admit that

“there are certain ways in which euro-pean decision-making is far removed from democratic input and democratic expression.” Nevertheless, he does not believe that this pooling of sovereignty necessarily equates to a loss of sov-ereignty. highlighting that the eU is democratic in many other regards, he argues that the eU also has the poten-tial to be far more democratic, if mem-ber states and their citizens become better acquainted with the system.

“I think the most important thing is to make european citizens, including our citizens, better informed about the eU, because they often do not realise how voters have influence,” he says.

“Irish citizens are represented directly through the european parliament, they are indirectly represented through the government of Ireland in the two most important institutions for eU decision-making, but the average Irish citizen, just like the average French or german or Spanish or Polish citizen, see the eU as a collection of eurocrats [who are] overpaid, faceless and tell us the shape our cucumbers should be.”

Concurring, gillespie argues that Ireland requires greater involvement at a european level than ever before and, in contrast to Coughlan, believes that common politics at a european level can help create a genuine european identity. “The relationship between europeanisation and national identity is terribly important. If you look close-ly at Ireland, there is a tension between the sovereignists and those open to multiple identities. Part of the conflict we have over integration is between these two political cultures.”

As Ireland looks to establish its fu-ture eU position, gillespie is keen to emphasise that this crisis cannot be combated without more “common poli-tics at a european level. I think we’re in a major shift ... we need more capacity at a european level because, arguably, bureaucratic structures have been cre-ated without political ones.” Although not suggesting that europe become a federal construct, gillespie feels the eU must “be made more politically ac-cessible if you want to be a democrat. you really encourage democratic par-ticipation by enabling people to have a more common politics.”

Common politics are not a possibil-ity according to Coughlan, who main-tains that the eU can never truly be democratic and is a product of a bygone era. “essentially, it should be seen as a Cold war creature and a result of the situation after world war Two, where the larger continental powers tried to recover prestige they lost by joining to-gether to become a big noise in world politics that they could not be individu-ally,” he says. “That’s all out of date and irrelevant now, and so is the european Union.” he continues, “There is a total-ly fallacious argument that, for people to matter in the world, they need to be-long to a large state” which drives eu-ropean integration and, in turn, leaves european states open to exploitation by their larger neighbours.

Thomas disagrees and instead ar-gues that state size does matter. he be-lieves that european states “recognise they are better off operating through a european structure than going it alone. who listens to Luxembourg or Croatia or Ireland in global politics? They are listened to because they are key play-ers within the eU.” This becomes even more important due to Ireland’s geo-graphic location. “Participation in eu-ropean integration has been very good for Ireland and it doesn’t have good viable alternatives,” Thomas says. “A small island in the Atlantic somewhere between europe and the United States is not a place you want to be. It may be a place you want to go to on holiday but in terms of economic welfare and po-litical influence, that’s not a place you want to be.” The consequence of this is that, even were the eU to collapse un-der its current guise, he argues that “it will be re-invented.”

Although sharing Thomas’s confi-dence of the eU’s ability to ride out the current crisis, gillespie offers some words of warning. “If the euro fails, you’re in for a period of very toxic politics in europe,” he muses.

“I’m not saying that there will auto-matically be a return to 1930s type of politics but there will be large scale instability, which is dangerous for small states, including us. we’re bet-ter to stay with this and argue our case through it, but argue it more vo-cally and openly, and help to create a better political framework, within which this kind of common politics can emerge.”

It goes without saying that the legacy of british rule guarantees an Irish aversion to outsider interference. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is that Ireland, by virtue of its small size, cannot cocoon itself from the out-side world and its policies will always be shaped externally to some degree. whether it must look to britain or eu-rope, Irish policy choices will be con-strained to a large extent by matters beyond national borders. As the eU approaches its next major crossroads in the form of a fiscal treaty, britain is taking an increasingly sovereignist po-sition and resisting deeper integration. Ireland must now decide whether it fol-lows suit.

Island Politics Fifty years after Seán Lemass opened negotiations with the European Union’s predecessor, Matt Gregg

explores Ireland’s continental relations

Taoiseach Minister Enda Kenny addresses a press conference at the end of a summit of the EU heads of State in Brussels

Paul Gillespie, former Irish

Times European Correspondent & UCD lecturer

“The relationship between Europeanisation and national identity is terribly important. If you look closely at Ireland, there is a tension between the sovereignists and those open to multiple identities”

“Our extremely competitive independent Irish currency prior to joining the Eurozone gave us the Celtic Tiger. The loss of control over our interest rate made our Celtic Tiger boom and turned it into a bubble which burst and caused the consequent slump”

Anthony Coughlan,

Director of the Platform for

EU Research & Information

Centre

Daniel Thomas,

Director of UCD’s Dublin

European Institute

“Who listens to Luxembourg or Croatia or Ireland in global politics? They are listened to because they are key players within the EU”

The University Observer · 31 January 20126 feaTUres

Ignorance and Neglect

In recent years, Ireland has made a sharp turn towards multicul-turalism. For a nation that has been perceived as unanimously white, both by foreign observ-

ers and its own indigenous population, Ireland has become more diverse at a rapid rate and has an increasingly large immigrant population.

Institutionally at least, Ireland is probably one of the most liberal and welcoming nations in the western world, and the increase in immigration to this country can be put down to its lenient immigration laws (in tandem with a formerly burgeoning economy). Profes-sor bryan Fanning of UCD’s School of Applied Social Sciences points out that

“we don’t have far-right parties, we don’t have anti-immigrant political move-ments and that kind of thing. In a sense, basically, our politics is such that racial tension doesn’t find expression.” how-ever, according to Prof. Fanning’s re-search, the problem of racism in Ireland is one of a series of isolated incidents, in-cluding people “who were terrified out of their houses, spat on and beaten up.

One black African bus driver described how he was urinated on from above by passengers in a very racially-motivated incident.” UCD Students’ Union Science Programme Officer, Chris wong, regu-larly hears of racial hate crimes from his mother, who is heavily involved in the Chinese-Irish community. “eigh-teen friends of hers have been robbed in the past three months. She tried to get the gardaí to help her in setting up a prevention scheme and they were very unreceptive.”

Despite such incidents of hostil-ity between white Irish people and citizens or settlers of other races, the issue of racism in an increasingly mul-ticultural nation is not prevalent in the public consciousness. Indeed, the Irish people took away the birthright of the children of non-nationals born in Ireland to Irish citizenship in a 2004 referendum, with 79.17 per cent voting to amend the constitution as such. It is clear that, for now, Ireland wants to retain its self-image as a white, Catho-lic people, and is resistant to embrac-ing the new, if unexpected realities of

multiculturalism. The closure of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism in 2008 due to government cutbacks only rein-forces this tenet.

Martin Collins, Assistant Director of travellers’ rights organisation, Pa-vee Point, believes that there have been

“various attempts to polarise the two communities – the traveller commu-nity and the new, immigrant communi-ties – and people have actually said to me, ‘we should be looking after travel-lers; they are our own people; they are citizens of Ireland, and we shouldn’t be looking after these new communi-ties.’ ... Suddenly, we have people com-ing out of the woodwork, suggesting we should look after our own first.” Collins goes on to state that the traveller com-munity has been living on the island of Ireland for 1,200 years. It seems the recent acceptance of his community by the settled people is perceived as an attempt at uniting white Irish against ethnic minorities. however, a 2010 report by Micheál Mac gréil, entitled

‘The emancipation of the Travelling

People’ illustrated that travellers were still “one of the most despised and ex-cluded groups in this society.”

The deduction has to be made that the settled, white, Catholic Irish per-son still conceptualises the Irish people as being identical to them racially, reli-giously and socio-economically. It’s an abstract notion, but one that finds some outlet in daily life, and wong has had to confront it from time to time. “A lot of people don’t believe that I am an Irish citizen; I have to prove it to them. A lot of time I don’t, because I’m already so pissed off with them.” At the same time however, Prof. Fanning believes that

“people who are Irish citizens tend to be of the same ethnic group, and perhaps there is a degree of what I call ‘ethnic nepotism’ towards themselves over others, and that tends to be something we find in other societies.”

This failure of the white Irish and immigrant communities to integrate amicably, combined with the relative apathy of the state and its practices, points to a continued status of anonym-ity for immigrants. The concerns of immigrants will not be properly taken care of until they have some kind of stake in our political system, and that starts with enfranchisement. It is an endemic problem facing immigrants that Prof. Fanning labels ‘benign ne-glect’. “Political parties are indifferent to immigrants, they aren’t represent-ing them. There’s a vacuum here, and it’s one of leadership. I think the poli-ticians who say nothing on such issues [such as the Darren Scully controversy] are also, basically, not representing their constituents.”

The comments and actions of for-mer mayor of Naas, Darren Scully, to-wards his black African constituents

late last year would surely paint some Irish politicians as indifferent to im-migrant rights. however, what is more damning of Irish politicians is the de-gree of civility with which the rhetoric and public debate on the issues of rac-ism and immigration are characterised

– a nation contented with the current standing of the population’s newest members, unwilling to recognise the antagonism many of them face on a daily basis.

For a nation with widespread emi-gration so engrained in its shared cul-tural history, one would believe that Ire-land would be welcoming of newcomers, intent on righting the wrongs their an-cestors faced in the New world. And while, legally at least, we are hospitable of those who seek residence here, social and political structures refuse to make ethnic minorities, and especially immi-grants, feel anything more than hostil-ity or indifference. UCD President hugh brady has taken steps to amend this in aiming for international students to make-up twenty-five per cent of UCD’s student body by 2015, which, as Chris wong, the only non-white UCDSU rep-resentative correctly states, is “high-lighting the fact that we need a more di-verse student body more than anything.” with that said, it is a proactive step. Is it however, a move born out of a dire need to enhance UCD’s reputation? Almost certainly, nonetheless, it is a racially in-clusive move, and a similar one should be taken at a national level, according to Professor Fanning. “The government should become more proactive in natu-ralising people who have been here a very long time, because their children are growing up here and so on. gov-ernments have a duty to be proactive in their leadership in these issues.”

In a time when political apathy and distrust is widespread, one proposed method of increas-ing political participation is to increase individual citizens’ in-

volvement via citizens’ assemblies. Tra-ditionally met with scepticism by Irish politicians, a group of Irish professors created the initiative we the Citizens and successfully applied for substantial funding from Atlantic Philanthropy. Their experiment set out to see if in-creased citizen participation through assemblies could increase trust in the political system and help citizens shape Ireland for the better.

The citizens’ assembly that we the Citizens proposed followed a system in use in several other countries where, according to Professor David Farrell, head of UCD’s School of Politics, “you engage with citizens directly in a bot-tom-up process where citizens have a direct involvement in helping to take decisions that are important.” Citizens would be called into such assemblies to decide on a particular issue in a par-ticular time frame. examples cited by Professor Farrell included allocation of a portion of local government bud-gets in brazilian communities, and an electoral reform proposal in british Co-lumbia.

Steven Cullen, a student participant, commuted from Raheny to Tallaght as a volunteer assemblyman in order to take part in one pilot. “I was required to take part in round table discussions based largely around trying to come up with practical solutions to Ireland’s

political and economic problems, and on how we can improve the system under which we’re governed.” They discussed both broad and specific top-ics and as the discussion proceeded,

“a moderator would record all of the points brought up, and we were also all given markers to use on the table’s pa-per tablecloth so we could write down any points or ideas that we had which didn’t come up in the discussion - mod-erators photographed all of these table-cloths at the end of the event.”

On the eve of Rosa Parks Day, George Morahan

looks at contemporary racial and cultural

relations this side of the Atlantic

With trust in the Irish political system at an all-time low, Jason Quigley explores attempts by the political initiative We the Citizens to introduce greater citizen involvement

Democracy in action

Cullen continued, “I was grouped with roughly eight or nine other par-ticipants plus the moderator. The other participants represented quite a vari-ety of age groups; I was certainly the youngest in my group, while the others ranged from people in their thirties, to the middle-aged, to retired people.” Of the moderators he said they “made sure that no one person dominated discus-sion, brought people into the discussion if they hadn’t spoken in a while, and also made sure that we never wandered too far from the core topics we were sup-posed to be talking about.” Of the dis-cussion he felt that “the dialogue at the assembly was generally positive. Most people were articulating reasonable, re-alisable and constructive points.”

Professor Farrell explained there are several factors key to ensuring a citizens’ assembly is a constructive and useful process. The first of these is the selection of participants, that they are

“randomly selected, because the alter-native of electing them, or of letting the citizens represent sectors, or interests, either of those alternatives, introduces the dangers of entryism, and the whole

process being hijacked. Random selec-tion cuts that out immediately.” by using such random selection they prevent ex-isting organisations from exploiting the citizens’ assembly for their own ends.

his second point was regarding the use of expert witnesses. “Clearly if you’re randomly selecting, you’re go-ing to have huge variations in skill set of those citizens, particularly on what-ever issue it is you’re talking about. And that’s exactly what we had in we the Citizens – which created an important role for expert witnesses.” These ex-perts would be “engaging with citizens so that they become informed of the nuances and difficulties and complexi-ties of particular issues, and then take informed decisions.” he spoke specifi-cally of an example in british Columbia where 160 assembly members worked on weekends for a year on possible electoral reform and how “by the end of that process those 160 citizen assem-bly members were experts on electoral systems, more expert then most politi-cal scientists would be.”

his final point is that assemblies must be time delimited, and formed

with a specific purpose. “Once it’s done its job it ceases to exist. we’re not talk-ing about a third house of the Oireach-tas, we’re talking about a one-off pro-cess and it’s set up for a purpose and made very clear from the get-go what that purpose is, so that the members have no false illusions about what their job is.” None of these assemblies exist in perpetuity, which ensures a high level of motivation on the part of participants.

we the Citizens has performed its experiment, and has now dissolved since submitting its report to the gov-ernment, but the question of greater citizen involvement remains open. The group behind the initiative are continuing to lobby for the use of citi-zens’ assemblies, particularly for the constitutional convention the govern-ment has committed itself to. Tánaiste eamon gilmore and Minister brendan howlin were both present to receive the we the Citizens report. Professor Farrell felt that it was too soon to say what the government’s response would be to their proposals, but he did feel, at least, that “both ministers gave a very positive vibe.”

Prof. David Farrell, UCD

School of Politics

“[The aim was] engag-ing with citizens so that they becomeinformed of the nuances, difficulties and complexities of particular issues, and then take informed decisions”

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 7feaTUres

Amidst the cut-backs and funding crisis throughout third level education, the government’s pro-posal to upgrade certain Institutes of Technology (IT)

to technological universities has been met with a lot of criticism and a unani-mous outcry from the country’s seven university presidents. Suggested in the hunt Report, this move could see a whole new type of university emerge with a different focus from traditional institutions.

Regions where the suggested re-forms are being considered include the Southeast (Carlow and Tralee ITs), the border Midland and western (bMw) region (Athlone, Dundalk, galway-Mayo, Letterkenny, and Sligo ITs), and Dublin (DIT and Tallaght IT). The idea has also received strong support from several senior Cabinet figures, includ-ing Minister for the environment Phil hogan and Minister for Public expen-diture and Reform brendan howlin, who represent Kilkenny and wexford in the Dáil.

Athlone Institute of Technology Pres-ident, Prof. Ciarán Ó Catháin, explains the ambitions of the project. “we are looking to create a differentiated institu-tion, one that will be known for the ex-cellence of its teaching and learning, and for its close collaboration with industry. Such a technological university will be much more than the sum of its parts, it will be a powerful agent of change in higher education for all the communities and stakeholders involved.”

however, the plan is still in its in-fancy according to higher education Authority spokesperson Malcolm by-rne. “First of all there’s no decision that has been made about giving university status to anybody yet. what’s provided for in the National Strategy for higher education, the hunt Report, is for the concept of a technological university and it’s essentially a university along the lines as we know it but it would be more focused on technology and in-deed industry.

“what has happened is that the heA has drawn up the criteria for what that technological university should be. Those criteria will be published in Feb-ruary and it will then be up to either in-dividual institutions or groups of insti-tutions to come together and to apply to become a technological university,” he says. “It’s not just going to be a name change from X Institute of Technol-ogy to X Technological University, they will have to meet the very rigorous standards that will be set out and that will be checked by both an Irish panel and an international panel … if it’s de-termined that they reach the standards that are set out in the criteria then a recommendation will come from the panel that the combination would be able to be a technological university.”

The debate on what exactly these

criteria will be is ongoing, and ru-moured to now be involving various ministers. So far it has been accepted that the new universities would be ex-pected to move away from the arts and humanities courses and focus on tech-nology and the sciences. but what ac-tually is the difference between a uni-versity of the type that currently exists, and one that is ‘technological’?

gerard Casey, UCD Professor of

Philosophy, is sceptical of what he says is politically-fuelled “creeping univer-sityitus” and claims there has always been a fundamental gap between the two kinds of institutions. he says that one of the traditional variations has always been in the way a student is trained to think. “The main differ-ence, let’s say in relation to something like engineering, because they both do that, was that the ITs, whether they’re designed to do this or not, were produc-ing people who were employment-fit almost immediately. That is to say they fitted into the existing employment structure, they went out into the job market with the skills they needed for that job market. The difference [with] a university education, however, in en-gineering is that you’re training people to devise the solutions to problems that don’t yet exist.”

The proposed promotion then seems at variance with a view President Mi-chael higgins echoed last week when speaking about the “intellectual crisis” he believes Ireland is facing. he spoke about the special role of the university,

“And were universities not special places, the citizens of the future may ask, for the generation of alternatives in science, culture and philosophy? The universi-ties have a great challenge in the ques-tions that are posed now, questions that are beyond ones of a narrow utility.”

however Professor Joe Carthy, principle of the UCD College of Sci-ence, does not agree that technological university can’t make a contribution to thought and development. “I think there’s a good tradition of technical universities in other countries, in ger-many and in the United States, the best known being Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and no one would dispute its contribution to global edu-cation so I wouldn’t be too concerned. I think university status would mean that the university academics would have the freedom to do the kind of re-search that they need to do. I think, and one assumes, that they would be able for excellence in their areas.”

Assurances by byrne that “the stan-dards that would be expected in aca-demic terms would be the same as any other university” lend weight to this appraisal.

Outside of the debate over educa-tional approach, the way upgraded ex-isting ITs to university status would benefit rural areas is also something that has been highlighted. Irish univer-sities are currently very urban-centric, and there has long been a desire by some to alter this. It is hoped that new university status will promote and de-velop rural regions, not only by keeping students in the area, but also through the work that they hope to carry out.

“how a bMw Technology Univer-sity will best serve the needs of this region is at the heart of our discus-sions,” according to Dundalk Institute of Technology President, Denis Cum-mins. “Research and innovation that supports indigenous and multinational

industry will be central to its operation, which will be a catalyst for job creation. This will build on our substantial track record of supporting enterprise.”

yet research is another topic that causes controversy. byrne says that

“One of the requirements [of becoming a university] is in the area of research and there is that issue between re-search and learning, so those criteria are going to have to be set out. I’m not going to pre-empt what the criteria are

because they still need publication, but obviously research would be one of them. Clearly anyone who wishes to apply for designation as a technological university would have to reach or ex-ceed the criteria that [are] set out.”

If the extra funding required to research and publish is considered, Casey believes that these reforms don’t make sense right now. he points out the much larger teaching involve-ment in ITs means that they currently don’t have time to research, and ques-tions whether the new dispensation would result in more staff being re-quired to provide time to do both. “It’s not like waving your magic wand, like Cinderella’s fairy godmother turning the mice into horses, it doesn’t quite work like that. you have to think it through. It’s a change in emphasis, it’s a change in what you do. A significant change. It’s not just a name, it’s a dif-ferent reality.”

he passionately outlines the real crux of the issue as he sees it. “has anybody thought this through? we’re being systematically cut in here, right now we literally have an embargo on tea and biscuits ... soon they’ll have us out cleaning the floor. The universities in Ireland are plummeting down the rankings for whatever they’re worth, which is not much as far as I’m con-cerned. The bottom is falling out of the market. There’s an embargo here on buying books for the library. we can-not buy books for our library. This is in a research institution. It’s pathetic.”

Carthy, while supportive of the over-all idea, echoes this sentiment. “There’s

almost an implicit thing that it’s not go-ing to cost anything, and it’s difficult to believe that that could be the situ-ation ... Some people kind of think it’s almost like you’re just changing the name plates, like the current institutes become universities and there’s no cost change. I suspect that’s not the case.” he continued by saying that there was a certain snobbishness associated with gaining university status and that the plan could affect CAO choices, even if no structural or budgetary changes were introduced. University status, even as just a name, can affect an institution’s ability to attract top students.

It is likely that real reform will re-quire investment in existing ITs and the question is, do we need to spend to aid recovery? In a joint press release by the Presidents of DIT, IT Tallaght and IT blanchardstown it is suggested that perhaps these new institutions would respond to what Ireland is currently lacking, which could in turn aid the economy. “In the context of Ireland’s national recovery plan, we will work towards building a new and exciting civic and technological institution, providing a world-class experience for our students, and developing graduates who will respond to the needs of society.”

however the issue of cost will not simply disappear. The exact criteria for the upgrades will be revealed in Feb-ruary, when we can expect the fund-ing debate to reach a climax. Techno-logical universities exist successfully worldwide, and lend to the production of a more diverse and skilled workforce. The benefit that would be brought to rural areas is also undeniable, but it is a sad fact that in Ireland education can-not function or compete internation-ally without substantial money coming in. without funding these new techno-logical universities could not get off the ground and into the rankings. without substantial funding and genuine re-or-ganisation, a superficial change in label will do little to paper over the cracks emerging across the Irish higher edu-cation system.

What’s in a Name?Following mooted plans to upgrade the status of

Institutes of Technology, Sally Hayden explores the ramifications for Ireland’s Higher Education system

ProfessorGerard Casey

“Has anybody thought this through? We’re being systematically cut in here, right now we literally have an embargo on tea and biscuits ... soon they’ll have us out cleaning the floor”

Higher Education Authority

spokesperson Malcolm Byrne

“The standards that would be expected in academic terms would be the same as any other university”

AIT President, Prof. Ciarán

Ó Catháin

“Such a technological university will be much more than the sum of its parts; it will be a powerful agent of change in higher education for all the communities and stakeholders involved”

Athlone Institute of Technology

Dublin Institute of TechnologyCarlow Institute of Technology

Letterkenny Institute of Technology

Sligo Institute of Technology Institute of Technology, Tallaght

Tralee Institute of TechnologyDundalk Institute of Technology

The University Observer · 31 January 20128 feaTUres

Cinneadh na nAlbanach

Is tréimhse an-suimiúil i stair na breataine atá ar siúl faoi láthair, agus feachtas neamhspleáchais ag

dul i neart in Albain. go stairiúil bhí ríocht ar leith idir Albain agus Shasana, agus bhí siad i gcogadh le chéile go ri-alta. Ach roinn siad an monarc céanna i ndiaidh 1603, nuair a corónaíodh Rí na nAlbanach, Séamas VI, mar Rí Séamas I Shasana i ndiaidh bhás eilís I.

Céad ina dhiaidh, i 1707, aontaíodh an dá ríocht mar Ríocht na breataine Móire. Ní raibh gnaoi ag muintir na hAlban ar an aontas ag an am. Dúirt Raibeart burns go raibh Albain “cean-naithe agus díolta d’ór Sasanach.” Ach le linn na trí chéad ina dhiaidh, bhí cuma ar an scéal go raibh Albain, an bhreatain bheag agus Sasana sásta in Aontas le chéile, agus go raibh scarúna-chas suntasach sa Ríocht Aontaithe gaibhnithe in Éirinn.

Ach ar feadh na 50 bliain seo caite, neartaigh náisiúnachas in Albain agus sa bhreatain bheag, agus i 1999, cruthaíodh parlaimintí cineachta i nDún Éideann agus i gCaerdydd. ba é Páirtí an Lucht Oibre páirtí ceanna-sach na hAlban le linn an leathchéid seo caite. Tá fuath ar na Tóraithe ag cuid mhór na nAlbanach, mar gheall ar pholasaithe tionsclaíochta Thatcher agus ar an Cháin Cheann go háirithe.

Shíl mórán Albanach go raibh par-laimint dá gcuid féin de dhíth chun an tír a chosaint ó rialtais Choimeádacha in westminster. Síleann cuid mhór acu gur páirtí ‘Sasanach’ iad na Tóraithe, atá in aghaidh mianta na hAlban, agus faoi láthair níl ach aon fheisire amháin

ag na Coimeádaigh in Albain.Ach mar gheall ar an ollmhéadú

atá tagtha ar thacaíocht do Phàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba (PNA) sna blianta beaga anuas, is cosúil nach bhfuil áit na hAlban sa Ríocht Aontaithe chomh daingean agus a bhíodh. bhí bua ag an PNA sa toghchán Albanach i 2007, an chéad uair riamh agus iad ina bpáirtí is mó sa tír, cé nach raibh ach suío-chán amháin níos mó acu ná a bhí ag an Lucht Oibre.

bhí rialtas mionlaigh ag an PNA ó 2007 go dtí 2011, agus i dtoghchán na bliana sin bhí bua stairiúil acu. bhain siad tromlach glan na suíochán, éacht iontach sa chóras ionadaíochta chion-mhaire atá i bhfeidhm do Pharlaimint na hAlban, agus d’éirigh ceannairí na trí mórphairtí eile, an Lucht Oibre, na Daonlathaithe Liobrálacha agus na Co-imeádaigh, as a bpoist ina dhiaidh. Mar gheall ar seo, is féidir leis an PNA reif-reann ar neamhspleáchas a ghairm.

Anois, tá cuma ar an scéal go bh-fuil an rialtas in westminster, atá ina chomhrialtas leis na Coimeádaigh agus na Daonlathaithe Liobrálacha,

ag déanamh iarrachta toirmeasc a dhéanamh ar chuspóirí Alex Salmond, ceannaire an PNA. Mhaígh siad nach bhfuil cumhacht ag Parlaimint na hAlban reifreann ar neamhspleáchas a ghairm, agus cé gur thairg siad an reifreann a éascú, tá amhras ag mórán náisiúnaithe in Albain faoina gcúise-anna.

Síleann siad go seasfaidh westmin-ster ar dháta an reifrinn – go ndéan-faidh siad iarracht an reifreann a eagrú níos luaithe ná an dáta ba mhaith leis an PNA – agus an cheist bheacht a bheas ar an bhallóid – go ndéanfaidh siad iar-racht tríú ceist, maidir le lánfhéinriail fhioscach, a choinneáil ón bhallóid.

Maíonn a lán náisiúnaithe, an PNA ina measc, go bhfuil polaiteoirí Sa-sanacha ag cur isteach ar ghnóthaí na hAlban mar thoradh. Luíonn siad go raibh gealltanas i bhforógra PNA don toghchán anuraidh reifreann ar neamhspleáchas a ghairm, agus taispeánann an sainordú treascrach a fuair an PNA sa toghchán sin go dta-caíonn muintir na hAlban le polasaí an PNA maidir leis an reifreann.

Luíonn siad chomh maith go gcuire-ann an tacaíocht mhór atá ag an PNA, agus an easpa tacaíochta do na Co-imeádaigh agus na Daonlathaithe Lio-brálacha in Albain, go bhfuil an ceart ag Parlaimint na hAlban an reifreann a eagrú, agus nach bhfuil ag an rialtas in westminster.

Tá baol ann do na trí mhórpháirtí in westminster, agus iad ag eagrú an fheachtais in aghaidh neamhspleá-chais. Dá mbeadh polaiteoirí Sasana-cha chun tosaigh san fheachtas, is mór an seans go mbeadh cuma mar fheach-tas ‘coilíneach’ atá ar son leasa Shasana,

agus in éadan leasa na hAlban, ar an fheachtas in aghaidh neamhspleáchais.

Is amhlaidh atá seo go háirithe dá mbeadh lámh ar leith ag Coimeádaigh san fheachtas. Tá an Lucht Oibre ag meath le déanaí, agus rinneadh dochar mór do na Daonlathaithe Liobrálacha in Albain sa toghchán anuraidh mar gheall ar a bpáirt i gcomhrialtas leis na Tóraithe in westminster. Ní dhéanfar maitheas d’íomha an dá pháirtí sin dá gcomhoibreoidís go ródhlúth leis na Coimeádaigh.

Ar a bharr seo, tá i bhfad níos mó gnaoi ag Albanaigh ar Alex Salmond agus an PNA ná ar na páirtithe eile nó a gceannairí, i nDún Éideann nó i Londain. Cé nach bhfuil tromlach glan ar son neamhspleáchais faoi láthair sna pobalbhreitheanna, níl tromlach glan ann in aghaidh neamhspleáchais chomh maith, agus mar thoradh, beidh an cinneadh déanta ag na daoine a deir ‘níl a fhios agam’ faoi láthair, mar iompóidh siad an scála.

Dá vótálfadh Albanaigh ar son nea-mhspleáchais, bheadh tionchar mór ar an tír seo chomh maith, sa Tuaisceart go háirithe. Síleann a lán Aontachta-ithe go bhfuil an ceangal idir iad agus an bhreatain bunaithe níos mó ar Al-bain ná ar Shasana. Dá n-imeodh an Albain an Ríocht Aontaithe, bheadh an ceangal idir Tuaisceart Éireann agus fuílleach na Ríochta Aontaithe níos laige, i meon mhórán Aontachtaithe ar aon nós.

Ar a bharr sin, bheadh Tuaisceart Éireann níos iargúlta arís, go tíreo-laíoch, sa Ríocht Aontaithe ná mar atá sí faoi láthair. Ní mór an iontas é mar sin go raibh ceannairí aontachtacha, Peter Robinson agus Reg empey ina measc, ag déanamh ráiteas in éadan neamhspleáchas na hAlban ar na mal-laibh. go híorónta, dá ndeighlfeadh an bhreatain, mhéadófaí an dóchúlacht go n-aontódh Éire arís.

Agus Alex Salmond tar éis a fhógairt go bhfuil sé chun reifreann ar neamhspleáchas na hAlban a ghairm in 2014, pléann Niall Mac Taidhg an cúlra stairiúil agus caitheann sé súil chun tosaigh ar an fheachtas féin

This New year has been a time of firsts. It was the first time I missed a flight, from London back to Canada. This is definitely something I never

want to repeat for the sake of both my sanity and my wallet. International flights are not cheap, and spending twenty-four hours in an airport is not anyone’s idea of fun. In fact it’s pretty awful. without a few hours of bbC’s Sherlock, and a season of Breaking Bad, I don’t think I would have made it.

Still, make it back to Canada I did, albeit a bit later than intended, just in time for another few firsts. My first Canadian winter, followed by my first night in the hospital, and my first set of stitches. These firsts are all related. Originally I was quite enjoying the Canadian winter. I’ve been lucky in that it has been rather mild here, practically still summer up until the new year, and even now that winter has arrived temperatures have been nowhere as low as they have been in the past. It has

been snowing, which I love because we get far too little snow in Ireland, but it has not been at all heavy by Canadian standards. As a result, I haven’t had to acquire much in the line of winter wear. My incredible landlord bought me a winter coat for my birthday, and apart from that I had been told to buy a “tuque” and winter boots to be fully protected against the cold.

If you’re confused by the word tuque, do not be alarmed. I had no idea what it was when someone first mentioned it to me. In fact, after asking a few Canadians and even looking it up online I am still fairly confused. everyone who mentioned this mythical piece of winter attire had either different views on what constituted a tuque, or had no idea whatsoever. The only real headway I’ve made is that it seems to be a term for a hat. why not just use the word hat then? Crazy Canadians. In the end I just got a hat. I also decided against the winter boots.

That was a mistake, and possibly

why I ended up in hospital.Canadians are so efficient at

clearing the snow away that it’s easy to just take for granted that a path will be completely free of snow, or indeed ice, wherever you go. After two weeks of this I got a bit relaxed, and was fully unprepared for that almost invisible patch of ice. being without winter boots and thus without much grip on

gluais:scarúnachas ..................................................................................... separatismcáin cheann .......................................................................................... poll-taxna Tóraithe ...................................................................................... the ToriesPàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ......................... Scottish National Party ionadaíocht chionmhar ............................ proportional representationDaonlathaithe Liobrálacha ..................................... Liberal Democratsforógra ................................................................................................ manifestoaontachtaithe .................................................................................... unionistsfuílleach ........................................................................................... remainder

my shoes, I fell pretty spectacularly. I managed to break my fall on a nearby wall but only with my head, hence my first hospital trip and five stitches in my forehead.

Still, despite those minor disasters, things have been great. I may have an everlasting hatred for gatwick Airport, but the first semester in Canada ended in fine style. I had a great Christmas

with my family and friends, and I’m thrilled to be back. The new college term has been eventful, highlighting in particular an aspect of Canadian society that we really don’t seem to exploit in Ireland: themed parties.

Consider this; in the past week I have been to a Lego party (where you play with lots of Lego), a Nintendo party (fancy dress with a Nintendo theme), and then there’s a blanket Fort party on Friday (we’re turning a friend’s apartment into a giant blanket fort - how spectacular is that?). Last semester there were many others, from the run-of-the-mill Toga parties to the more risqué AbC parties (Anything but Clothes). even better is the fact that everyone takes the themes pretty seriously. There’s nothing worse than people showing up in normal clothes at a fancy dress party. It’s just not on.

I find these themed parties spice up going out in a great way. The variety is amazing, and you not only have the fun of preparing for these parties yourself, but also of arriving and getting to see what everyone else did too. These should happen more at home.

Stitches and themed parties aside, life in Canada continues as normal. My landlord consistently buys me lunch, despite my attempts to evade his charity, and in return asks only that I teach him how to use the Internet and his new blackberry Tablet. he is eighty, and has never used a computer before. It’s been an experience. The only worry I have is that my facicious use of the word ‘eh’ (pronounced ‘ay?’), seems to be becoming less and less of a joke. Canada is contagious. you’ve been warned.

On his return to Canada after the winter break,

Niall Spain is keen to hit the ground running

Postcards from Abroad

Toronto

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 9

“UCD is strong enough in numbers and student leaders to have a pivotal role in any governmental negotiations without needing the banner of the USI to advance our aims and grievances”

“Without the backing of such a major force in student politics,

UCD runs the risk of being left out in the

cold during both discussions with the government

and campaigns for student rights”

yes. Elizabeth Beecham

opinion.Should UCD leave the USI?As the proposed new Students’ Union constitution recommends a referendum on USI affiliation, Elizabeth Beecham and Lauren Tracey debate whether or not USI membership is worthwhile

is uCd’s membership of the union of students in ireland worth the €125,000 it cost us last year? i be-lieve uCd can provide the advo-cacy, support and representation outside of usi that we so desper-ately need at this time to protect our welfare and education. i know it is easy to build a straw man de-bate about the futility of uCd’s usi membership by highlighting just how much is spent on it, but it is perhaps the most pressing con-sideration when evaluating how we as a student body are benefit-ting from our membership.

austerity and budget cuts have become the white noise that in-filtrates all of our university ex-periences. uCd is struggling to educate its ever-growing student population with less funding from the state, and its international recognition slipping ever lower. i, like many, believe that every cent should be utilised in a way that improves the student experience, and usi membership is not de-livering to uCd students to jus-tify this cost. That €125,000 has almost endless potential uses on campus.

uCd is strong enough in num-bers and student leaders to have a pivotal role in any governmental negotiations without needing the banner of the usi to advance our aims and grievances. at a student population of nearly 25,000 it is difficult to see how we could be sidelined, especially considering our respected place within irish academia and uCd’s contribution to every aspect of irish life and society. some have even argued that being so large we dominate the usi, reducing its benefits as a forum for smaller colleges and in-stitutes of technology.

Through its students’ union, uCd already has the internal structures to better facilitate stu-dent engagement on a greater level, and earlier on in their uni-versity education. it is far better placed then the usi to work with residences, clubs and societies and departments of the univer-sity, to respond more dynamically and effectively, and to do so in tune with the mood on campus on a certain issue. Take for ex-ample the mental health initiative Please Talk, which began in uCd and spread to twenty-seven col-leges across the country. Please Talk was uCd’s way of starting to tackle an issue in a sensitive, pow-erful way and enhanced the sense of community within the univer-sity. Regardless of one’s views on the su or its sabbatical Offic-ers they are an engaged, visible force on campus and as such are less remote both metaphorically and geographically than the usi. if one wants to encourage real

student participation, even activ-ism, then surely the uCd students’ union can achieve this more ef-fectively than the usi. leaving the usi would not result in a dilution of core student messages such as arguments against fees, as the media seeking the opinions of both the usi and the uCd student leaders would instead strengthen the power of the message.

The only argument for remain-ing within the usi is that it is easier for the government to negotiate with one umbrella organisation than with uCd as an outsider, yet this argument isn’t compelling enough to justify every cent of our usi affiliation costs. The usi has activated the student move-ment against fees in recent years and for this it has to be applauded. apart from this, to me, an average student, the usi merely repre-sents a bureaucratic level far re-moved from my university experi-ence and unable to enhance it.

Rebuttal byLauren Tracey

While i do agree that uCd is a formidable force in the academic world and we are the largest uni-versity in the country, this is not a question of our student popu-lation and our high status in the university world. The irish govern-ment refuse to co-operate with academic institutions nationwide; primary education, secondary education and third level budgets are all being slashed, while social welfare and the health services have taken severe hits. Minister noonan and his colleagues are determined to take money from wherever they can, and the strong united voice of not one, but for-ty united colleges and universi-ties around the country would be heard much better and make much more of an impact than for-ty individual voices.

it must also be considered that leaving the usi would make it much easier for the government to insist on only speaking with just that organisation, therefore elimi-nating nearly 25,000 students and their representatives from discussions.

it is ridiculous to argue that the ability to negotiate as a team with the government on key issues, such as student fees and the ex-pansion of third level education budgets, is not ‘a good enough reason’ to leave the usi. We uni-versity-goers are not the Celtic Tiger generation, we haven’t got the money to spend on these ex-tortionate fees and if the usi can help us avoid paying them, and represent us well while doing it, then i am very much in favour of remaining standing alongside them.

Over the past number of months ireland’s student population has been faced with some incredibly difficult circumstances. With reg-istration fees set to rise, mainte-nance grants at risk, and the pros-pects of securing employment as graduates becoming bleaker by the day, now the students of university College dublin may be asked to consider the possi-bility of leaving the usi, the sole national representative body for students in ireland.

at a time when the rights of students are being progressively chipped away by a government intent on skimming money from every department and sector they possibly can, how can it even be considered that uCd should leave the usi? The acknowledgement must be made that the idea of uCd’s students’ union moving out on its own and establishing itself among the larger student representatives is appealing, but leaving the usi altogether brings the old african proverb to mind;

“only fools test the water with both feet.” There are many benefits to be gained from remaining within the organisation, and students should be aware of the enormous gains that come from ties with the institution. The usi, at its very core, was conceived to represent those who had been placed in the points race and made it to their chosen universities and colleges.

according to figures on the of-ficial usi website, presently the usi represents 250,000 students from forty colleges around ireland. They stand with the student un-ions’ and fight for the key issues of financial support for all students and ensure that there are appro-priate standards of living in place, particularly for those who are vul-nerable and living far from home. They tackle issues in conjunction with the students’ unions, and strengthen the voices of those we elect to represent us. Withdraw-al from the usi would severely weaken the voice of uCd’s stu-dents’ union officials. Without the backing of such a major force in student politics, uCd runs the risk of being left out in the cold during both discussions with the govern-ment and campaigns for student rights. in times such as these this could only prove a disadvantage for the students attending uCd.

Representing the amount of stu-dents that the usi does makes the organisation a strong presence and voice in ireland. it is through its vast array of media links and contacts that our students’ union receives the publicity they require to make their campaigns known country-wide. losing such an important media link would badly damage uCd’s ability to publicise important

issues. The student march against fees in december highlighted how a connection with the national rep-resentatives of students is a posi-tive one for uCd’s students’ union. student opinions are aired on na-tional programmes such as Prime Time and RTÉ News through usi officials.

it is also important to consider that one of the services the usi of-fers is training events, which allow our students’ union representa-tives to “fulfil their roles as effi-ciently as possible throughout the academic year.” The usi has been running successfully since 1959 and is choosing to pass on their knowl-edge and skills to students’ unions across the country so that the stu-dent is represented to the high-est standard on all platforms. The links with the usi provide uCd’s su officials with a degree of cred-ibility, with the skills to represent the students of their university with responsibility and knowledge, and with tools to have their issues raised accurately and adequately.

a break with the usi is not the right choice for uCd students at this current time, when the possi-bility of even attending university next september is fading fast for many. now more than ever, the students of university College dublin need to be represented, not only by their own su, but at a national level by a body with as much experience as the usi.

Rebuttal byElizabeth BeechamThe degree of media attention garnered by the usi-led protest on fees and student supports is undeniable, yet i fail to see how leaving the usi could hamper uCdsu’s capability to promote and highlight these issues through the diverse media outlets at our disposal. The role of Campaigns and Communications Officer is dedicated to this, and persons who are nominated and elected to this position should have the skills and ability developed to ad-vance our concerns. They do this through acting as class reps and working with clubs and societies, and don’t require professional media training paid for by us.

Recent proposals to amend the usi constitution announced could exacerbate this problem, with of-ficers remaining in their roles for more than two years. usi has a dual role to play: representing our views as third level students in ire-land, and advocating and articulat-ing these views to the educational establishments and government. The usi fails to truly represent uCd students meaningfully as it is seen as a preparatory school for would-be politicians, all paid for by our student Registration Fee.

no. Lauren Tracey

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The University Observer · 31 January 201210 OpiniOn

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCEWith renewed calls for Scottish independence dominating UK parliamentary debate, Evan O’Quigley discusses the issues facing both sides of the argument

there has been much discus-sion recently of the possibility of scotland becoming inde-

pendent from the united kingdom sometime in the next few years, a trend which many attribute to the recent success of The scottish national Party, a social democrat-ic party that has campaigned for scottish independence since their formation in 1934. in last year’s scottish Parliamentary election the party won a landslide victory, gaining a majority with sixty-nine seats. Much of their recent success has been attributed to their leader, alex salmond, who has led the party since 2004.

salmond recently met with Prime Minister david Cameron in order to discuss plans for a refer-endum on independence. Camer-on and the scottish First Minister have clashed over the possibility of scottish independence, with all three of the uk main party lead-ers; Cameron, deputy Prime Min-ister and liberal democrat leader nick Clegg, and labour’s ed Mil-liband opposing the proposals. alistair darling, the former Chan-cellor in Gordon brown’s govern-ment, and currently an MP for

edinburgh south West, recently warned that independence could carry a “huge economic risk”. he stated in an interview with the the Observer that if the scots voted to leave the union, the country could plunge into economic uncertainty.

darling has been seen by the unionist camp as the most qualified to spell out the possible negative consequences of scottish independence passing in the uk. Much of this is due to the general unpopularity of the Conservative party, and of david Cameron’s government in much of scotland as well as his now famous, and correct, warning of Gordon brown regarding the gravity of the economic downturn facing the uk and the world. While he does not support independence, Cameron has been careful to stress that he does not mean to suggest that scotland could not survive independently, but has stated that it would be ‘best’ for scotland to remain in the union.

Many in scotland, including the snP, have been pushing for the a third option to be included on a referendum of Maximum devolution, or ‘devo Max’ as it has been dubbed by the media. This

would essentially keep scotland in the united kingdom, while allowing the scottish parliament to take a large amount of power away from london, including full fiscal autonomy, essentially handing over all powers to scotland with the exception of defence and foreign policy. Polls have indicated that a majority of scots would prefer this ‘devo Max’ option, although both coalition parties and labour have opposed it.

For this these parties have been accused by unionists of ‘gambling’ with scottish independence, by possibly re-enforcing nationalist sentiment in the country. The current system of governance in scotland has been criticised for not allowing enough power to the scottish parliament, and for scottish MPs in london voting on purely english issues that do not affect their own constituencies. Cameron has pushed for the referendum to be carried out in 2013, while salmond would rather it wait until 2014, when the possibility of achieving a yes vote would be more likely. salmond recently criticised Cameron for the ‘bullying’ nature he has

adopted. stewart hosie, a scottish nationalist MP, recently stated at Westminster that “every step the anti-independence parties have taken since Cameron’s chaotic intervention ... has done nothing but boost support for independence and ensuring that the people of scotland are able to see decisions taken about what’s best for scotland in scotland.”

While a majority voted for the snP, according to a recent ‘you-Gov’ survey, most scots (sixty-one per cent) oppose indepen-dence, although a majority of fifty-eight per cent indicated they would like the scottish Parliament to have control of its finances. Many support the party, but not the cause, thanks to salmond’s charisma and the party’s ability to attract non-nationalist voters due to their popular stances on other issues, as well as presenting them-selves as a centre-left, electable and moderate nationalist party.

The unionists’ biggest problem is that their opposition to an inde-pendent scotland focuses entirely on the negative connotations as-sociated with, and not the posi-tive aspects of, remaining in the

union. duP councillor lee Reyn-olds criticised the unionist oppo-sition to salmond as being weak and unable to effectively argue their case, despite the fact that remaining in the union has con-sistently polled as more popular than independence. While Reyn-olds may have a point, he like oth-er unionists fail to understand the view many share that the status-quo is no longer working, which has been shown by the support for maximum devolution of power from london to holyrood.

The pro-union camp refuse to acknowledge how the current economic situation has diminished voters’ belief in large economic structures such as the united kingdom, which has also led to recent rises in euroscepticism across the uk. This is likely to be an advantage for salmond and the snP, as recently in scottish politics anything negative is more often than not attributed to participation in the union. if Cameron eventually backs down from his staunch opposition, it is entirely possible that scotland will acquire fiscal autonomy. as for full independence, that will remain to be seen.

President’s Awards for Excellence in Student Activities

University College Dublin

You are invited to make a nomination for the President’s Awards for Excellence in Student Activities. The award scheme aims to provide recognition for those students who excel in extracurricular activities

of a kind which make UCD a more exciting, interesting and humane place to live and to work.

Nomination Forms: available from Forum Office (Ext. 3100), Students' Union and Services Desks. Any member of the College - either student or staff� - can make a nomination. They should write, giving the nominee’s name and a short explanation of why they believe

the nominee is worthy of an award. It is not necessary that the person nominated is aware of the nomination.

Nominations, preferably typed, should be sent to:

The DirectorThe Student Consultative Forum

Student CentreThey should be in an envelope marked ‘STUDENTS AWARDS’ and should reach the Forum office before: Thursday 16th February, 2012

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 11 OpiniOn

iMPRisOninG huManiTy

Illustrations: Conor O’Toole

Charity CaseAfter a series of controversies occurring within charities such as the Red Cross, Sean O’Grady looks at where our donations are really going

the word charity is defined as ‘the voluntary giving of help, typically money, to those in

need’ but charitable organisa-tions, however, can often end up being something slightly differ-ent. by the very nature of chari-table and voluntary bodies, they are non-profit unions. For many people this is a misleading title as it gives donors a view that chari-ties do not keep a penny of their income for themselves. The fact is, they do. While this certainly doesn’t make a charity’s actions any less altruistic, it can be some-what unexpected for people who were led to believe that all of the hard-earned cash they donated would be given to the cause itself.

if a charity wants to be suc-cessful and well-run, a consider-able portion of the money they receive from the public will have to go into areas such as fundrais-ing and administration. although this is a necessary tactic if a char-ity wants to be a success, it can also be disheartening for donors. a common issue with many vol-untary organisations is that the money they generate doesn’t go exactly where they had promised it would. it is not unheard of for charities to make donations to other organisation that their rela-tives or friends may run. They also have the ability to spend their donors’ currency on salary perks and other ventures separate to the cause they promote.

it is completely fair to say that

nowadays, the modern face of charity is not the organisations themselves, but the omnipres-ent street fund-raisers known as ‘Chuggers’, or ‘Charity Muggers’. These overly friendly clipboard holders can regularly be found ambushing people on Grafton street to donate to their cause of the week. although such cam-paigners are promoting a good cause, to call them irritating would be a gross understatement. We have all been made to feel guilty because we ‘don’t have any spare change’ to hand when they suddenly appear in front of you of out nowhere. What many don’t realise however, is that they are not just doing their job out of the goodness of their heart, but be-cause they are being paid. in the uk and ireland, fundraisers often earn well over the minimum wage and they also receive additional cash based on how many signa-tures they collect. street fundrais-ers usually do not work for the charity they claim to support, but are working for a fundraising third party.

Most surprisingly, the fundrais-ing companies that chuggers work for can often charge up to ninety-five per cent commission in the first year for the charities they are supporting. This means that just five per cent of the money that a charity would earn would actu-ally be donated to their cause, the rest all going into the upkeep and promotion of the organisation. it

is no wonder that voluntary com-panies do not make this fact clear to their donors. This massive percentage gener-ally drops down the longer a charity is active, and it is advisable to be cautious of charities that give over fifteen per cent of their income to administrators.

Charities such as the Red Cross have come under fire re-cently with claims that they are misrepresenting their assets. The criticism revolves around the diver-sion of donations from the haiti relief fund, and allega-tions that €160,000 raised for the tsunami relief in asia was held in a bank account in Co. Tipperary for several years. The story has forced the com-pany to redraw its constitution and introduce new codes of con-duct to prevent any similar hap-penings. The Red Cross has also come under fire in China, where a controversy came about in July 2011 after a senior member at the Chinese Red Cross blogged about her expensive clothes and luxuri-ous lifestyle. her actions ignited a firestorm in China and led to in-tense paranoia about corruption and political interference within Chinese charities. Philanthropy in China is still in its developing stages and has been seriously hin-dered by this woman’s seemingly

harmless blogging about her life.While it is clear that charities

can lose sight of what they origi-nally wanted to achieve from time to time, it should not discourage anyone from donating to a cause they feel passionate about. it should make them more eager to seek out organisations that they

know will use their donations to assist worthy causes. Many peo-ple seem to give to charities that they, in fact, know little about. if those in need are really to be helped then those donating need to do their research and ensure that they know exactly where their money is going.

As Minister for Justice Alan Shatter denounces the prison service for poor conditions, Yvanne Kennedy looks at whether a plan proposed by its Director General will do enough to safeguard prisoners’ rights and reduce re-offending

much louder than words and so he must show true leadership in order to ensure this enthusiasm is matched by all those working with some of the most vulner-able in our society.

‘slopping out’ is one of the single most degrading activi-ties of prison life, and yet it is still practiced in the majority of ireland’s fourteen institutions. This was highlighted by Judge Michael O’Reilly in the limer-ick report and accompanied low-level intimidation of pris-oners by some prison officers, overcrowding, filthy cells and broken windows. Minister alan shatter has said he was “disap-pointed and indeed shocked” at the findings, which have been classed as some of the worst in the system. according to the report, the continued incar-ceration of prisoners in certain wings that lack in cell sanitation and basic levels of cleanliness is

“inhuman and degrading.” That is not to say that this is

entirely commonplace, however it still should not be occurring at all. The core aim of the irish Prison service is prisoner care and rehabilitation, but if conditions in any of our places of detention leave these men, women, and teenagers feeling less than any other citizen, how can we really demand full re-integration and adherence to codes imposed by people who didn’t care about them as long as they were locked up? a serious issue whenever people in prison are allowed access to novel and ostensibly

“fun” initiatives is the public perception that they are being rewarded instead of punished.

erwin James, a former in-mate and author of A Life Inside,

wrote in the Guardian recently that “for real change to happen, people in prison need to be challenged, helped, motivated and encouraged to believe that they can live a better way.” The article refers to studies com-pleted in a young offenders’ prison in the uk that showed a reduction in recidivism in those who participated in some form of meaningful activity. Propos-als have also been made for participants “to meet with vic-tims of crime who would ex-plain the impact that crime had on them and their families.” This is a novel idea, one that should absolutely be considered by our Prison service. if rehabilitation and a ‘brighter future’ is what we are truly aiming for, we must let those in prison see this fu-ture and strive for it.

expressions of shame, guilt, remorse and embarrassment are abundant amongst prison-ers, as are good intentions for life after prison. ninety-seven per cent of those who respond-ed to a prisoner crime reduc-tion survey carried out in 2010 expressed a desire to stop of-fending. but always in short supply has been the means to heal troubled and troublesome lives. Prison represents justice to many victims of crime, but it also has a duty to serve the po-tential victims of released pris-oners. There must be a com-mitment on all sides to allow for reform and rehabilitation. One wrong turn in life does not mean that a person deserves to be punished for eternity. if prisoners aren’t shown basic humanity, we cannot expect them to change into the sort of people that everyone, including themselves, wants them to be.

Prisoners’ rights are not something a lot of us think about on a daily basis. One

recent article on thejournal.ie on temporary release saw a par-ticular commenter say “if you want to commit a crime, do it in ireland ... you’ll be educated, fed and given room and board. Great little country!” although it is true that many in our prison system have been found guilty of heinous acts, it is more often that they have committed minor crimes. Regardless, they are still deserving of their basic human rights. Their punishment is losing their freedom, not their dignity or an acceptable standard of living.

RTÉ has reported that direc-tor General of the irish Prison service, Michael donnellan is currently working on a three-year plan that he hopes will drastically ease prison over-crowding and help improve conditions. This comes in the wake of a recent report from the inspector of Prisons in which graphic details were given of in-cell sanitation, prisoner num-bers and other major problems in limerick Prison. There are aims to work with the Minister and the judiciary to allow those serving sentences of twelve months or less to serve them in the community. it is hoped that this will allow proper communi-ty integration, which in turn will cut down on recidivism, which currently stands at sixty per cent within five years in ireland.

donnellan is seemingly a breath of fresh air for the ser-vice and his presence at a re-cent seminar by the irish Penal Reform Trust, the main irish prisoner advocacy organisation, is a testament to his commit-ment. actions like these speak

W/C

The University Observer · 31 January 201212

s c i e n c e & h e a l t h

while many psychedelic drugs have earned a bad reputation in the public eye, there has

been a resurgence of their use in al-ternative therapies in the last decade. The infamous hallucinogenic fungi Psilocybe, commonly known as ‘magic mushrooms’, has been the focus of two studies published in the past month that analysed brain activity in users of the drug, as well as its potential for therapeutic application.

A research team in Imperial Col-lege London investigated the brain’s response to the drug from both neuro-logical and psychological perspectives. by mapping brain activity in a group of healthy volunteers with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they were experiencing the psy-chedelic state brought on by ingesting magic mushrooms, they illustrated the correlation between changes in con-sciousness and decreased activity in central hub regions of the brain.

The active compound psilocybin, which is present in these mushrooms, is responsible for its hallucinogenic effects, such as flashbacks and vivid relivings of past experiences. It is not entirely understood how psilocybin causes such a reaction in users, even though it has been shown to activate receptors of serotonin (a neurotrans-mitter that is associated with happi-ness) in the brain. It is this reaction that interests researchers in psychoanalyti-cal therapies.

by demonstrating how a ‘power-down’ of central hub activity in the brain was a confirmed response of the nervous system to psilocybin, the research team disproved the com-

mon misconception that taking magic mushrooms ‘expands the mind’ or in-creases brain connectivity. Areas that would usually have important synchro-nous activity showed a large decline in interactivity, which contradicts many drug-users’ philosophy that magic mushrooms will free the mind and ac-tivate heightened brain consciousness. The opposite, in fact, is true.

It is now proposed that the dream-like state of recollection induced by magic mushrooms is owed to this reduction in brain activity and con-nectivity. The intensity of the drug’s effects in patients corresponded to a large decrease in functional connectiv-ity between the main areas of the brain. The largest areas of decreased activity were the prefrontal cortex and the an-terior and posterior cingulate cortices. It is thought that by reducing synchro-nisation between these connector hubs, psilocybin impedes the flow of infor-mation through the brain, and this accounts for the hallucinations and the state of ‘unconstrained cognition’ experienced by users of magic mush-rooms.

The second paper published by the research team analysed the implica-tions of reduced brain activity for psychedelic drug-assisted therapies. evidence that psilocybin enhances au-tobiographical recollection attests to its potential use in psychotherapy as a tool to reverse negative cognitive be-haviour.

Positive memory cues were used to cause visual recollections in volunteers, who had been asked prior to the study to compile a collection of personal memories of specific life events, (such as standing at the alter on their wed-ding day). whilst being monitored by fMRI scanning, the memory cues were shown to volunteers who had taken psi-locybin, and they subsequently prompt-ed the activation of sensory and visual regions of the brain, which remained inactive in volunteers on the placebo dose.

This switch in sensory function from a pattern of deactivation under

placebo to activation under psilocybin is crucial, and may explain why memo-ries can be felt as especially vivid or

‘real’ when under the influence of psy-chedelics.

The patient feedback from the study corresponded to the technical results from the fMRI scans. Memo-ries were rated as more “vivid, visual, emotional and positive” under psilo-cybin than placebo. Patients on psilo-cybin reported that they felt like they were more attached to the images they saw than they otherwise would be, referring to heightened emotional engagement.

Although the patient report is a sub-jective measure of the body’s response to the drug, it correlates strongly to the evidence obtained from the fMRI scan-ning, and it gives scientists and medical professionals a greater understanding of how the sensory regions of the brain affect our cognition and perception.

essentially, the practical implica-tions of this study show the potential that psilocybin has to reverse negative thought patterns in patients suffering from depression or anxiety. Depression involves hyperactivity in the prefron-tal cortex, leading to the pessimistic outlook characteristic of the condition, so deactivation of the prefrontal cor-tex region could alleviate those symp-toms. The Multidisciplinary Associa-tion for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in America openly supports the use of psilocybin to treat anxiety in patients of life-threatening illnesses, in addition to applied therapeutic uses of cannabis, LSD and MDMA. Some past studies support this use of psilocybin, report-ing mood improvements in cancer pa-tients who suffer from anxiety.

however, not all studies in the area have produced the same successful set of results, so there remains a strong element of doubt in the minds of many psychotherapists over the possibility of such alternative treatments. One of the main limitations of this treatment lies in trying to ensure that any hal-lucinogenic experiences caused are positive ones; most ‘bad trips’ reported on magic mushrooms are often linked to painful or conflict-laden memories being re-experienced. For the drug to work in relieving anxiety and depres-sion effectively, the entire hallucina-tion experience must be positive.

MaGiC OF The MushROOMTwo recent studies have revealed that ‘magic mushrooms’ may be useful in the treatment of anxiety and depression, writes Emily Longworth

From comas to mind control, neuroscience is standard fare in pop culture these days, but its use is not always textbook. Ethan Troy-Barnes explains why

All too often, popular culture takes undue liberties with matters of the mind – but how skewed is our

idea of how the brain works? Do fact and fiction always sing from the same hymn sheet?

we should start with the basics – what are brainwaves? your brain is es-sentially a great mass of wires and cir-cuits. when you think, current flows through these ‘wires’ (cells known as neurons) from one part of the brain to another. when current flows in this way, electrical signals resulting from these processes can be detected on the surface of the brain, through the skull, using electrodes. This results in a picture (or ‘waveform’) on a monitor called an electroencephalogram (eeg), which is similar to an eCg.

Obviously, the brain is doing mul-tiple things at any given time, and so the resulting information is a bit jum-bled. Once this jumbled signal is sorted out, the result is a short and fast wave-form, called a beta wave. when we go to sleep, this picture changes entirely. Instead of a busy metropolis, the brain becomes a tranquil sea – devoid of the activity that characterises the waking state. The brain shuts down and be-comes desensitised to all but the most intense external stimuli. Accompany-ing this is a decrease in the amount of

detectible electrical activity. As you fall asleep, your brain descends through a continuum of brain waves which are much longer and slower than beta waves, ranging from alpha waves (most active) through to theta and then delta waves (least active).

In practice, a person’s state of alert-ness is usually measured simply by their ability to respond to pain and touch. however, the presence and type of brain waves detected by an eeg can be used by medics to determine the consciousness of a patient, and to inves-tigate brain activity where the underly-ing neurological problem may not be so apparent. The relevant terminology can be employed with wild abandon in certain narratives, but may also be used quite accurately in some television pro-grammes, such as House and ER.

eegs are also exploited in science fiction exploring the stranger side of neuroscience such as telepathy and mind control (Star Trek’s Vulcans and X-Men’s Jean grey being prime ex-amples) – where a subject may be (ar-bitrarily) said to be exhibiting “strange

brain waves.” In reality, the brain sim-ply lacks a natural means to directly send electrical signals to, and interact with, another individual. however, the ability to communicate with others and with machines by thought alone might not be as fantastical as we may think. Many futurists believe technol-ogy holds the key to unlocking such po-tential, and researchers in Switzerland have already developed a prototype wheelchair capable of being controlled entirely by the mind for patients suffer-ing from total body paralysis.

Returning to sleep; every few hours during the night, your brain will go into an extremely deep sleep, called ReM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This lasts about forty-five minutes, and is when you dream. At this point, your brain ramps back up to highly active beta-like waves. This is because a dream is quite like being awake, except you are experi-encing an alternate dream-reality based on memories and past experiences.

however, everything seems real at the time, and you’re processing a vast amount of simulated sensory informa-

tion just as though you were awake. you are even electing to make move-ments based on these stimuli – the only thing stopping you acting out these movements is an automatic, body-wide paralysis during the dream.

when this safety mechanism fails, a person will talk in their sleep or even sleep walk. This is exploited in narra-tives where people may reveal their darkest secrets in the middle of the night – an idea that is not unrealistic, as it is quite possible for people to co-herently form words or even complete sentences while dreaming.

The concept of dreaming is the also the crux of narratives which explore ideas of virtual reality such as The Ma-trix and Inception, which exploit the ability of the brain to process sensory information, despite it not actually ex-isting. Furthermore, the brain’s pow-erful capacity to imagine and interact with artificial worlds depicted in video games might be seen as an extension of the ability to dream.

Finally, a narrative gambit so over-used that it has become inextricably

associated with television and film: the soap opera coma. A comatose state is actually defined as a period consist-ing for more than six hours in which a person cannot be awakened, even by strong stimuli such as pain. This is, in essence, abnormally deep sleep and is the body’s response to some form of extensive damage – the idea being to restrict all non-essential bodily activi-ties to allow resources to be used only to heal the individual and prevent fur-ther damage.

A study was carried out and pub-lished in 2006 to determine how accu-rately comas are depicted on the silver screen. It found that characters often recover instantly, with full conscious-ness. This is far from the reality, where patients can go through days or weeks of incomplete and transient conscious-ness. Perhaps a more obvious error is that characters often awaken with tanned skin or even fully toned mus-cles, which is unlikely due to the decay muscles undergo during extended peri-ods of disuse. evidently, work remains to be done where science meets fiction.

Neuro-Science Fiction

The University Observer · 31 January 2012 13science & HealTH

bodies on the brain

A tail of two squirrels

Cast your mind back to your primary school days and you will probably remem-ber learning about Ireland’s wildlife. you might even

remember the term ‘Iora rua’, or ‘red squirrel’. This shy tree-dwelling mam-mal can still be found in forests across the country, but this may not be the situ-ation for much longer.

Since the introduction of the grey squirrel to Longford in 1911, red squir-rels have grown scarcer and their dis-tribution has shrunk dramatically; so much so that the National Parks and wildlife Service has had to take mea-sures to protect it. Ireland isn’t the only country where this animal is in danger; the red squirrel has become extinct in england and wales due to the introduc-

tion of the grey squirrel in 1876. howev-er, another factor helped along the dis-appearance of red squirrels in the UK: the lethal Squirrel Pox Virus (SQPV). It was long believed that Ireland was free of this disease – that is, until now.

This January, the first Irish case of SQPV was confirmed by Prof. Sean Cal-lanan of the UCD Veterinary Pathology Department. The squirrel was found by local resident Kevin Phelan while walk-ing in woods in hollywood, County wicklow and since then two more cas-es of the disease have been confirmed. This development could spell doom for our native squirrels.

It is widely believed that grey squir-rels fight with and kill their red counter-parts, but this is not the case. They are simply bigger, breed faster, have more

young per litter, and can exist at higher population densities - therefore they have displaced the red squirrel popu-lation by competition. Reds are now mostly found in inhospitable pine for-ests where food is too scarce for greys to thrive.

grey squirrels are simply more adap-tive - they are happy to live near humans and although they’re cute and playful, they can be extremely destructive to homes and gardens. This has resulted in them being classed as a household pest alongside rats, wasps etc. They also strip bark off trees and significantly im-pact upon commercial broadleaf timber production.

grey squirrels have another means of thinning out the red squirrel popu-lation; it is believed they are carriers of

the Squirrel Pox Virus, but have evolved an immunity and thus are resistant to its potentially deadly effects. It is yet unknown how they transmit the disease to red squirrels, but scientists believe it may be passed on via secretions from scent glands that they use to mark their territories. Its effects on non-immune squirrel species are devastating.

The virus causes lesions similar to those seen in rabbits with myxomato-sis - swellings, ulcers and scabs develop around the animals’ eyes, mouth, nose and paws and it is believed the squirrels simply die of dehydration, respiratory problems and starvation as they cannot forage for food or eat. The virus does not seem to affect their internal organs.

yet there may still be hope for the red squirrel - in 2008, a UK scientist discov-

A deadly virus has reached our shores and is set to devastate our already ailing red squirrel population. Alison Lee writes about the dangers posed and the efforts being made to save the creatures

ered a handful of animals that had de-veloped antibodies to the disease, thus indicating that some red squirrels have the potential to become immune. when myxomatosis was introduced to the UK in the 1950s, the death rate amongst rab-bits was almost one hundred per cent, but those with a natural immunity sur-vived, bred and now the death rate has decreased to thirty-five per cent. A simi-lar situation may occur if enough red squirrels develop an immunity to the disease and live long enough to produce immune young. The development of an SQPV vaccine could also theoretically save the red squirrel. In fact, a Scotland-based charity called wildlife Ark Trust are currently trying to do just that, but it will take at least another year to develop an effective vaccine, and subsequently three years of trials will be required be-fore it can be used in the wild.

So what lies ahead for our red squir-rels? If the virus spreads throughout the country it is likely that they will go the same way as their counterparts in eng-land and wales. Although the loss of a native species would indeed be tragic, Darwin’s principle of “survival of the fittest” doesn’t take pity or make excep-tions for any animals, no matter how cute or charismatic they may be.

Since humans set this tragedy in mo-tion by introducing grey squirrels to Ire-land, it is only right that we at least make an attempt to preserve one of the few Irish mammals that still survive in the wild. This will require measures such as supplementary feeding, monitoring and recording squirrel numbers, careful for-est management and the humane cull-ing of grey squirrels. yet these measures require money and resources that Ire-land is currently lacking. Therefore the future may be bleak for Iora Rua - only time will tell.

On February 2nd, the human body experience will make its w o r l d

debut in the Am-bassador T h e -a t r e i n D u b - lin. Those attend- ing will, as e v e n t co-ordina-tor Noel M c h a l e explains, be offered the unusual opportunity to view the body systems of numerous real human specimens. “There are different galler-ies, there’s a skeletal and muscular one, respiratory ones, digestive and nervous system, and the circulatory system.” There is also an optional gallery, which shows the full chronological develop-ment of a baby (these specimens were

acquired from wom-en who had miscar-

riages).A german anatomist,

gunther von hagens, pioneered the preserva-

tion technique used on the specimens. In 1977 he invented

a technique called ‘plastination’. The bodies are processed in the Dailin hof-fen biotechnique laboratory in China,

which is also where they are also sourced. The process can be in-

credibly time consuming, with some larger specimens taking up to a year to be preserved. The first step is the dissection of the body or body parts, where the anatomical features that are to be accented are focused upon. The body is then preserved using formalde-hyde (a simple organic chemical often used in embalming), making the speci-men partly rigid, which is useful when

the team is try- ing to put the body into a par-ticular pose. The specimen is then dehydrated by im-mersing it in acetone (a highly volatile solvent, sometimes used as nail polish remover) at a very low temper- a t u r e . Finally, the body is placed in a bath of liquid poly- m e r and a vacuum is created, which allows the acetone to boil off and be replaced by the polymer. Once the specimen is cured and dried, the preservation pro-cess is finished. exhibits that show only certain body systems are prepared in a similar way. The exhibit ‘Red Man’ is a specimen with every blood vessel ex-posed. Mchale explained how this was prepared, “you dissect out all the blood vessels, and inject them with polymer, and then you rebuild the body.”

The last time such an exhibition

came to Ireland, it was embroiled in controversy b e -cause the company run- ning it was unable to account f o r the exact origin of each of the bodies on display. It was al-leged that the bodies on display were either Chi- nese politi-cal prisoners or unclaimed bodies of those killed after a natural disaster. A dif-ferent company is running this exhibi-tion, and when asked about the origin of the bodies, Mchale assured the Univer-sity Observer that all of the bodies were obtained ethically. “The bodies are Chi-nese because that’s where the university is, if it was in Kerry, it’d be all Kerry peo-ple … every body that we have has been legally donated and can be traced back, there is a certificate with them.” when the exhibition is over, all the bodies are returned to China, where they are re-

spectfully disposed of. “They are returned to

the university where there’s a ceremony and

they’re cremated.”Another controversy that was

generated when similar exhibi-tions were run previously was

that it was deemed unethical by some to exhibit human bodies, while others maintained that the bodies on show were not treated with sufficient respect. Again, Mchale assured us that the bodies are treated with the utmost professionalism. “At all times, any deal-ings we have with them, there is total and profound respect for the bodies, because they were living breathing hu-man beings at one stage.”

The exhibition will run until the end of April in The Ambassador Theatre. Student tickets are priced at €16.

Ahead of the unveiling of The human body experience on the 2nd of February, Noel Mchale talks to Conor O’Nolan about the exhibition

The University Observer · 31 January 201214

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ONE LIFE, ONE YEAR, MANY CHOICES

This week has seen, for better or worse, some of the largest-scale and most overtly aggres-sive student protesting seen in UCD for some time – or at

the very least, the largest and most ag-gressive protesting not organised by the Students’ Union themselves. what is re-grettable, in this editor’s opinion, is how these protests also represent some of the most misguided outbursts of latent reactionary rage for a good while longer.

In previous editorials, I have ex-pressed (to occasional dissatisfaction) my enthusiasm for student activism, contrasted against my disdain for ac-tivism engaged incorrectly. Unfortu-nately, it is my sincere belief that these latest protests fall firmly into the latter category.

Three key issues facing UCD stu-dents have arisen lately, each eclipsing the former both in scale and impor-tance. Firstly, the Students’ Union Copy bureau was closed over Christmas, with the loss of two jobs. Secondly, the al-ready tentative USI ratified a new con-stitution to both enable gary Redmond’s third term in office and provide him with an unabashed pay increase. Third-ly, and by far the most threateningly, a makeshift Irish SOPA has been rushed through, threatening not only our very

free speech, but the future of our largely tech-based economy. yet, bizarrely, only the first case is worthy of an en masse pseudo-socialist movement.

I personally interviewed both par-ties affected by the job cuts, and I can-not be more sympathetic to both them and their families. Redundancy is never easy, but to be fired days before Christmas is salt in a very unexpected wound. It cannot be stressed enough that, by all accounts, the staff of the bureau performed their duties expert-ly, and that their redundancy and the bureau’s closure is no reflection on them. however, it is this editor’s opin-ion that there is a fiscal reality that is not being faced by the movement that stormed the Student Centre, and as such, a logic that is being completely ignored, replaced instead by a sense-less anger that seems more rooted in sheer bloody-minded anti-establish-mentism than hard fact.

As revealed in the last issue of this paper, the Students’ Union is in debt to the tune of approximately one million euro. Consider the size of the Union as a company – some small money-making ventures, hurt somewhat by the direct loss of the campus bars, and under fifty employees – and consider, could any comparable business survive that de-

gree of continued losses? would any other business receive such vitriol for making cuts in the same scenario?

Furthermore, the movement and its principle figurehead have frequently described themselves as ‘democratic’, citing that the crowd was asked via megaphone if they would like to march from the UCD Lake to the Student Cen-tre and back again. whether this vali-dates their status as democratic is up for debate, particularly when two separate votes, made both by their elected rep-resentatives in Students’ Union Coun-cil and in SIPTU itself, failed to come out in favour of the movement. That is real democracy, and the people whom the electorate have chosen to represent them have decided that maintaining a Union in the long run is more important than the relocation of the Copy bureau to a private company that provides the same service.

That is not to say the SU does not need to make changes, and the cutbacks that have been promised must come into full effect, but that does not in itself validate a protest that was outwardly aggressive in nature. Representatives of the protest have described their actions as peaceful, and I may only give my ac-count based on both my presence there during the events, and the effects the

protest had on the visibly shaken (and unaffiliated) Student Centre staff whom I interviewed after the event. Although there was a vast majority of concerned, good-natured and well intentioned protesters whom I applaud for their activism, there was a sinister minority, the kind who might try to force them-selves into the SU corridor, burst open office doors and scream expletives at not only SU employees, but at some of the independent, unpaid student staff of this newspaper who were present at the time. This is not a legitimate form of protest, this is misinformation and causticity turned tonally violent.

Now, should this same acrimonious-ness be directed towards the USI or the government itself for what are, unques-tionably, far more grave and damaging actions, then this editorial would have no doubt taken a different tone. how-ever, as it stands, it is my opinion that this movement would be better served directing its energies towards a more fitting target, one for whom the logic of activism is not only clear, but intel-lectually motivated. To quote one of the many heckles directed at the SU Presi-dent when he addressed the protesters with an explanation of the Union’s in-ability to maintain all services, “nothing is impossible, Pat”.

Observer Editorialeditor@universityobserver.ie

Quotes of the Fortnight

“The fact that we’re bringing in a new constitution doesn’t mean that the current constitution is all bad”

Pat de Brún on the new proposed constitution

“It was fantastic to see that people were angry and wanting answers”

Auditor of Socialist Student workers Society, Karl Gill

“Pasta and one euro pasta sauce became a staple of my diet”

Brendan Lacey on living on Res

“I think some of-ficers have more in their workload than other officers”

Pat de Brún

“We cannot buy books for our library. This is in a research institution. It’s pathetic”

Professor Gerard Casey on university cutbacks

editorJon hozier-byrne

Deputy editorKate Rothwell

Art and Design DirectorConor O’Toole

Otwo editorsgeorge MorahanAoife Valentine

News editorKatie hughes

Features editorMatt gregg

Opinion editoremer Sugrue

Science & health editorConor O’Nolan

Chief Science & health writerAlison Lee

Sports editorDaniel Keenan

Irish editorSéamas Ó Meachair

Music editorCormac Duffy

Film editorDermot O’Rourke

Fashion editorSophie Lioe

Food & Travel editorelaine Lavery

Online editorRyan MacKenzie

Copy editorsgeorge MorahanAoife Valentine

Chief PhotographerDavid Nowak

ContributorsAlexander AndrewThe badgerSteven balbirnieelizabeth beechamKevin beirneAoife brophyDixon ColtraneRory CreanChloe DuaneDavid FarrellSally haydenSara holbrookNiamh hynesAaron Kennedyyvanne KennedyColm Lakesemily LongworthNiall Mac Taidhgeimear McgovernMystic Mittensemily MullenRob Mac CarthyCatherine MurnaneCarl MurraySean O’gradyevan O’Quigley

Michael O’SullivanJason QuigleyNiall Spainben StoreyTalleyrandLauren Traceyethan Troy-barnesDenis VaughanJack walsh

IllustratorOlwen hogan

PhotographersCiara AndrewsCaoimhe McDonnellbrian O’LearyJack walshLindsey Cleland

Special ThanksPeter, Ian, Tim, Malcolm, Ade, Jonathan, Dave, emma, ged, bob, Steve at gPC Manchestereilis O’brienDominic Martella

Colm, Sabrina, Rory and guy at MCD PromotionsMary-Kate at PIASPriscilla at Universalgiselle JiangDominic, grace, Charlie, Jason, gary, Stephen, Mark, Sandra, Paul and all the Student Centre Staff

Very Special ThanksAmy bracken, Donna Doyle, bríd Doherty, Paul Fennessey, bridget Fitzsimons, Nicholas Lawrie, Danielle Moran, Joe Murphy, Dave Neary, Quinton O’Reilly, Rob Lowney, Ruth McCourt, gary Kealy, gav Reilly, Natalie Voorheis and all other friends and family who have supported and encouraged us during our eighth issue

the University Observer

Volume XVIII Issue VIII

Telephone: (01) 716 3119/3120email: info@universityobserver.ie

www.universityobserver.ie

The University Observer is printed at The guardian Print Centre,

Longbridge Road, Manchester M17 1SN.

Letters should be sent by email toletters@universityobserver.ie or by mail toThe editor, The University Observer,UCD Student Centre, Belfield, Dublin 4

The editor reserves the right to edit any letters.All letters are subject to editorial approval.

Clarifications & Corrections

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editor It is the policy of the University Observer to rectify any errors as soon as they arise.

Queries and clarifications can be addressed to info@universityobserver.ie.

“There is a fiscal reality that is not being faced by the movement that stormed the Student Centre, and as such, a logic that is being completely ignored, replaced instead by a senseless anger that

seems more rooted in sheer bloody-minded anti-establishmentism than hard fact”

15The University Observer · 31 January 2012

Hello hoodlums!It’s been drama to die for this week

in New Hack City, and Talleyrand dearly wishes he could die for the second time since 1838 so as to

avoid it. First of all, Lawschmuck highlighted their hideousness in a video so vile that an Irish SOPA was enacted merely in order to have it removed from the Interweb. Having seen themselves on the small screen, the illusion was shattered before anyone could say ‘Share this’, and the suckciety soon began to crumble like the ‘castle’ its members lurk in. Talleyrand suspects that Law Balls tickets may now sell as well as those for Res Bollocks.

Speaking of failure, a raggle-taggle band of nineties rejects were forced to finally ‘perform’ for Stephen ‘that hoover was lonely’ Dyson’s Ents Spew last week. Someone needs to tell the man who wants nothing more than to look like Nick Carter that he can’t just keep spending good Goonion money on meeting his heroes and luring them back for tequila at his gaff.

Rachel ‘iShag’ Breslin came to the realisation this week that she was paying too much attention to locking her bins, and not enough to her office. The IMFSU came to her rescue this time, but rumour has it that Pat ‘Purse Strings’ de Brún has already issued an invoice for monthly repayments. The frugal financier has also been chasing down Sam ‘Education?’ Geoghegan in order to make sure he starts to charge for his services, but the gangly schoolgirl hasn’t graced the corridor for a while – he was last seen desperately trying to fish some outdated books from a skip. Now Sammy, don’t tell me Talleyrand didn’t warn you that those bin-loving habits would get you into trouble.

Brendan ‘Bodyguard’ Lacey has been seen looking shifty around the photocopier, printing hundreds

of thousands of ‘Soz bbz, moneyz all gonz’ letters while hundreds of thousands of students queue to use the last remaining photocopier on campus.

The queue was soon broken up by a haggard looking group of Talleyrand’s least beloved type of scum, would-be leftie would-be humans. Instead of asking them for their student cards and sending the cretins back to Dame Street (or even more productively, to a job centre so they could finally join an actual trade union), Pat ‘Good King’ de Brún took to the stage and attempted to reason with the masses. Aspiring hacks 2012/2013 have since been spending their time swooning around the corridor and vomiting praise onto his Facebook.

Talleyrand can almost smell election fever. Kill me now.

Talley-ho!Talleyrand

In the previous issue of the University Observer, in the article entitled

‘Medical Director of health Centre fears privatisation’, we asserted that the health Centre had been put up for tender. we have been informed that there were two tenders, one for the provision of medical services to staff, students and the local community, and another to conduct a review of the existing health Service. we are happy to clarify this.

Talleyrand

The University Observer · 31 January 201216

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The University Observer · 31 January 2012 17spOrT

Into the WestDaniel Keenan talks to Connacht centre David McSharry about his time with UCD RFC, his switch to the West, and the importance of Connacht in Irish rugby

er, Connacht have revived the careers of players such as Ian Keatley, Sean Cronin and Fionn Carr.

The departure of those players to Leinster and Munster has seen the emergence of new talent at Connacht, as Tiernan O’halloran, Mick Flanagan and eoin griffin are just some of the other young Irish players beginning to estab-lish themselves at the province.

“They had a big time influence [on McSharry’s decision to go to Connacht]. when you see how well those lads have done in the last year, with the likes of griffin, who I’d played alongside the whole way up, and the same kind of lads with Leinster who were not getting a look in.”

McSharry believes the Connacht set-up is vital for the future of Irish rugby. he cites the lack of player depth in the Connacht side as the reason for their fourteen-game losing streak, since they didn’t have enough players to cover the number of injuries they accumulated, due to a lack of funding from the IRFU. Connacht U-20s also won the Inter-Pros this year, the underage inter-provincial tournament.

“I watched them [Connacht U20s] play two games this year. There are

some brilliant prospects coming through there. Over the next two or three years we’ll see them come through into both the Connacht team and the Ireland team.

“I think [the Connacht set-up’s] in-fluence is massive. There are three other provinces to choose from, but if they al-low the proper funding and everything to go into it, Connacht could be a stron-ger fourth province. with the amount of young players coming through, they could look at that and realise that there’s an extra pool of players to choose from.”

One of the young Irish talents com-ing through is McSharry’s centre part-ner, eoin griffin. The two were in the same Irish U20 squad, but saw limited game time together. McSharry is happy to be seeing more game time with the galway man, who was also signed up to a professional contract in December. “I really enjoy playing with eoin. he’s got a really bright future ahead of him. At U20 level we always fitted well together and I get on well with him off the pitch, which is important.”

McSharry plays down Connacht backs’ coach billy Millard’s suggestion that he will play for Ireland one day, alongside griffin, preferring to take

David McSharry’s ca-reer has reached new heights over the last few months. In October of last year, he scored a try for UCD against bruff

in Division 1b of the All Ireland League. One week later, he was lining up for Connacht in the heineken Cup against Aviva Premiership leaders, harlequins.

Fast forward another week, and Mc-Sharry was lining up against four-time heineken Cup winners Toulouse. his op-posite number was one of the world’s most formidable centres, yannick Jauzion.

“I got on against Leinster with Con-nacht, and things didn’t really go my way,” says McSharry, “but I got another shot with Ulster and it went a bit better that time. I was lucky that eric [elwood, Connacht’s Director of Coaching] kept faith in me and I got to play in the har-lequins game, at the Stoop. It was some change around from the bruff game with UCD.

“Toulouse was the next week, and I was opposite Jauzion; that was another big one and it just seemed to keep get-ting bigger every week.”

Neither game brought victory for Connacht, but a spirited performance from the westerners looked like it might lift them from their funk, which had seen them lose their previous four games. Connacht would go on to lose their next eight games, before welcom-ing harlequins to the Sportsground.

Connacht’s fourteen-game losing streak didn’t look like ending after a two-point loss to Leinster and an away loss to bottom side Aironi when ’Quins arrived in the west. McSharry wasn’t involved in the team due to injury, but was relieved to see the streak come to

an end, and for Connacht to get their first ever heineken Cup win. Their win against ’Quins essentially put Ulster into the quarter-finals of the heineken Cup.

“All the hard work that had been go-ing in for the last few weeks hadn’t been coming to anything, so it was great to see the lads get a big win, especially in the heineken Cup with a lot of eyes on them. we did Ulster a nice favour too!”

McSharry originally started as an out-half, playing in the number 10 shirt for Templeogue College through the Senior Cup, before making the switch to centre during a trip to South Africa with the Leinster schools team. It was through Leinster that McSharry earned a scholarship for UCD.

“I had gone away to South Africa for the Leinster schools team and when I got back from that, I got started for the U18s team. I played the Inter Pros U18s and U19s. During that time my brother had been playing all along in UCD, and I’d been up watching his games. I got chatting to John [McClean, Director of UCD Rugby] who said he’d seen me play a few times with Leinster, and he basi-cally just offered me a scholarship.”

McSharry spent two years playing U20s in UCD and a year and a half playing senior, before switching to the west. his career took a setback during his second year playing U-20s, as he picked up sev-eral injuries, hindering his development at Leinster, where he was in the sub-acad-emy. he jumped at the opportunity to join Connacht at the start of the year.

Connacht has always been the for-gotten province of Irish rugby. They are the least funded of the four provincial sides, and with the european success of Munster, Leinster and even Ulster, they are often overlooked when talk of devel-oping Irish talent is brought up. howev-

each day as it comes. “with how quickly things have turned around for me over the last few weeks, it hasn’t really been something on my mind. I suppose hold-ing onto the twelve jersey each week is what’s keeping me going.

“Over the next few years, maybe I will [think about playing internation-ally]. It’s great to see gav [gavin Duffy], Macca [Mike McCarthy] and wilko [brett wilkinson] and the lads in the wolfhounds at the moment.” The wolf-hounds could also be a way forward for McSharry in the future.

After a string of impressive perfor-mances for Connacht, which saw him play six games and score one try, Mc-Sharry was awarded the Connacht Play-er of the Month for November, and was then awarded with a professional con-tract with the club.

he still follows UCD and believes that there are several players from the cur-rent squad who can make the next pro-vincial breakthrough. “I keep following UCD and keep in contact with the lads all the time. A few of my best friends are playing for UCD, and it’s great to see them overturn Trinity in Colours this year after what happened last year.

“There is a lot of young talent coming through there. I played a small bit this year with a few lads, and there’s a few strong players coming through: Andy boyle, Sam Coughlan Murray, James Tracey. And a few lads from Leinster who have got a few games; Luke Mc-grath is supposed to be very good and Conor gilsenan. There’s a huge crop of good players coming through in UCD.”

After such a promising start at Con-nacht, it seems that David McSharry’s venture to the west has been a success. Turning just twenty-two in February, his future looks very bright.

McSharry recieving the Connacht Player of the Month award

David McSharry playing for UCD RFC McSharry playing for Connacht against ToulouseMcSharry alongside Connacht teammate Eoin Griffin

“Toulouse was the next week, and I was opposite Jauzion; that was another big one and it just seemed to keep getting bigger every week”

“If they allow the proper funding and everything to go into it, Connacht could be a stronger fourth province”

interview

The University Observer · 31 January 201218 spOrT

The Badger

Super Bowel Movement

sports Digestby Daniel Keenan basketballuCd Marian were beaten by ul eagles at the university arena in limerick on saturday January 21th with a final score line of 75-68 in the Men’s superleague.

uCd started well and led at the end of the first quarter 10-18, but the home side fought back and were ahead 34-29 by the end of the first half. The third quar-ter belonged to uCd, who led by seven with a quarter to go. in the final ten minutes, the eagles upped their tempo and two big three’s by scott kinevane set them on their way. With the uCd team down a man due to team fouls, the eagles were able to keep the score board ticking and went on to win by seven.

uCd Marian had solid perfor-mances across their team with the scoring led by donie stith (15), Conor Meaney (15) and kevin Foley (14). ul eagles were ultimately the better team, with the scoring led by Robert Taylor (21), scott kinnevane (14) and neil Campbell (12).

SoccerPaul Corry has signed on for another year with uCd aFC. The uCd academy product had been linked to clubs outside the col-lege since the 2011 season ended, but has committed himself to the belfield club for another season. The twenty-one-year old mid-fielder has represented ireland at underage levels, including a home based under 23 ireland squad, and is continuing his degree in Commerce as he plays for the college. Over the last three seasons, Corry has played fifty-nine times for the students, scoring six goals. The close of the season has seen speculation link-ing him with a move away from belfield but Corry has chosen to stay with the students as he con-tinues his final year of studies.

GaaThe recipients of the Grant Thornton Gaa scholarship were kildare’s Peter kelly, Masters student, uCd sigerson Captain and Gaa all-star in 2010; donie kingston, third year arts student playing u21 and senior Football for laois, and Galway’s Colin Forde, fourth year Physiotherapy student and all-ireland u21 Cap-tain. The Cadbury Football schol-arships were also announced last week, with Wicklow’s aaron Murphy and Westmeath’s Cormac boyle the two uCd recipients.

Meanwhile, uCd Gaa hosted a free symposium on Player Well-being in uCd’s health science building on Wednesday night. The symposium attracted a huge crowd from all sports as the guest speakers discussed areas relevant to all athletes competing in sport, including alcohol, nutri-tion, and injury.

Whether the New York Giants can deal with being

favourites this time around will be a

huge talking point

the badger’s least favourite time of the year is coming, and since the badger is an absolute

playa, it isn’t valentine’s Day; it’s super bowl sunday.

The Badger is sick of American Football hype

Carl Murray previews Super Bowl XLVI and looks at both teams’ path to Indianapolis

Ian Campbell racing in the Formula Ford this year

Toppling a gianT

it’s the day when half the population of ireland pretends to be American, not by eating too much fast food or bombing the middle east, but by sitting down to watch American football. the badger’s main problem with American football used to be its ridiculous name. Calling a sport ‘football’ when the ball is so rarely kicked in a match used to irritate the badger, but since watching the endless series of handpasses in Gaelic, it’s become apparent to the badger that the use of feet is not a vital aspect in naming a sport ‘football’.

but there are so many reasons to dislike American football, not least the time it airs at on this side of the Atlantic. the badger is nocturnal, yet still doesn’t bother to watch the nFl; is the badger alone in thinking that that

time of the night should be dedicated to hunting mice?

not to badger on about time, but when more of a game is spent in studio analysing the plays, than on the field, you’re probably not watching the best sport.

the badger will concede that the nFl has some of the best athletes in the world, but it remains less a sport, and more an anorak’s wet dream, since the sport’s platform is completely based on statistics. A player can’t be judged by anything but a number on a page, to the point where watching a match is more like watching an outdoor maths class.

American football is the basis for movies including Remember the Titans and Any Given Sunday, so it is also responsible for drunks and coaches of

underage GAA teams poorly retelling the speeches, and attempting to recreate the dance, in a feeble attempt to replicate Al Pacino and ryan Gosling. surely this is a crime grave enough to ban the sport?

And then there’s michael vick. is it unfair to judge an entire sport by the actions of one player? no, because the badger says so. so, one of the nFl’s best players of the last decade gets bored and organises some dog fighting rings? Again, the badger may be alone here, but he doesn’t agree with this.

so the badger will not watch the super bowl xZii$Q. in all honesty, the badger would rather see what’s going on in michael vick’s back garden than watch the super bowl. it’d probably be easier on the eye too.

For those who were willing to brave the very early hours of Sun-day morning to watch the NFC and AFC Championship games, it was most certainly worth it.

The New york giants recorded a gritty 20-17 overtime win over the San Francisco 49ers, while the New eng-land Patriots, through the misfortune of Ravens kicker billy Cundiff, secured a 23-20 victory over the baltimore Ra-vens. In many ways it was the tale of two kickers as the giants’ Lawrence Tynes’ successful kick sent the New york side to their first Super bowl since 2008, while Cundiff, who signed a five-year contract worth about $15 million in January of last year with the Ra-vens to become their long-term kicker, hooked a simple thirty-two yard field goal to the left and wide.

Indeed, the way in which the giants and the Patriots are coming into this year’s Super bowl is almost identical as to the way in which both teams made it to Super bowl XLII in 2008, a game which the giants won. The giants, who finished the regular season in 2007 with a 10-6 record, finished the regu-lar season this year with a 9-7 record. Although the Patriots didn’t finish this season with the perfect 16-0 they had in the 2007 regular season, their 13-3 record tied them with the rest of the NFL’s top seeds.

Similar to the build-up to Super bowl XLII, the giants are coming into Super bowl XLVI in terrific form. Since they were 7-7 they have won five games in a row, most of them on the road, out-scoring their opponents 141-67. The giants’ defence, although only ranked twenty-seventh for the regular season, has succeeded in shutting out oppo-nents’ offence by using the three or four man rush on the quarterback. This is something they will look to use against Patriots quarterback Tom brady.

brady struggled to find his man as the Ravens’ defence increased pressure on the pocket. brady finished the game with a respectable 22/36 pass rate for 239 yards, but the big difference was that he threw no touchdown passes.

This is in stark contrast to the joy brady enjoyed in games at the end of the regu-lar season such as against buffalo, or in the playoff win against the broncos.

brady is now in his fourth Super bowl and is arguably the best quarter-back to date, but doesn’t hit the numbers he usually throws if he’s forced to move around in or outside of the pocket. For his laser-guided arm to function to its full potential his feet must be set, and

brady’s numbers for throwing when running are poor in comparison to the likes of Tim Tebow. This is where New york will try to use their strength, the three or four man rush with varied zon-al coverage, to unearth brady’s weak-ness and cut off the Patriots’ supply.

The Patriots come into the game in solid form on the back of a sort of anti-climatic AFC Championship victory. A positive for all Pats fans going into the

game is that they won without brady throwing a TD pass, as they normally rely so heavily on their quarterback. while it shows that the Ravens’ defence shut him down somewhat, it also instils confidence in the rest of the team that they can win a Championship whether brady shows up or not. Another posi-tive is that when the passing game wasn’t working benJarvus green-ellis and Danny woodhead were able to carry the team’s offence quite literally, thus further indicating how flexible this supposedly one-dimensional New england team can be.

The giants seem to be the early fa-vourites for Super bowl XLVI as the statistics are most definitely on their side. They have won seven consecutive overtime games, have had no fumbles in seven games, have had no turnovers in three of their last four games, only allowing the 49ers one third-down conversion out of thirteen in the NFC Championship game.

whether the New york giants can deal with being favourites this time around will be a huge talking point. In 2008, nobody thought that the gi-ants would be able to stand in the way of the then 16-0 Patriots. It seemed as if their underdog status, as it always does to teams, gave them a degree of freedom when playing in the Su-per bowl that year, as if the occasion didn’t faze them. Although the giants have displayed some of the grinding, hard-fought form they displayed in that 2007-2008 season, one wonders whether they will be able to replicate it on February 5th.

The Patriots can see what stands between them and the Vince Lombardi trophy and won’t underestimate the gi-ants like they seemed to have done in 2008. Although the form guide points the way of New york, it is hard to see how such a proud, hard-working and grounded franchise as the New eng-land Patriots will allow the giants to beat them for the second time this sea-son (24-20 to giants in Foxborough, MA in week 9), and for the second time in a row in the Super bowl.

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The University Observer · 31 January 2012 19spOrT

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEy STAy THE SAME

anybody’s GameWith what is expected to be a tight Six Nations kicking off this weekend, Kevin Beirne looks at each country’s aspirations

Sam Warburton’s infamous tackle on Vincent Clerc during the World Cup. Wales travel to France on the last day of the tournament hoping to avenge this loss

spring is here, which can only mean one thing: the business end of the rugby season. For the next month and a half

the heineken Cup will step aside to allow something even bigger to take centre stage. The six na-tions is back, and it promises to be more intriguing than ever.

This year’s tournament carries some extra, World Cup-shaped, baggage with it. half of the teams in this year’s six nations lost in the knock-out round to another euro-pean team, and another two failed to qualify from groups which were won by their european counter-parts, with only France being knocked out by a southern hemi-sphere team.

This means that there are five World Cup rematches on the cards, with three teams looking to avenge their World Cup defeats at home. These rematches will go a long way towards deciding who will win the tournament. 2012 is one of those exciting years where there is no out-and-out favourite.

With a new head coach at the helm, and the classic French tem-perament a constant factor, the French remain, as always, unpre-dictable. They played poorly in autumn, even losing to Tonga, but somehow only lost the final by a single point. This would seem to put them forward as automatic fa-vourites. in order to win however, Thierry dusautoir, iRb World Play-er of the year, will need his men to reproduce the energetic play present in the final, rather than the dull, cynical style that got them there.

Wales pose arguably the big-gest threat to France’s hopes. although the form of the likes of sam Warburton and Rhys Priest-land has cooled since their semi-

final defeat to France, their pas-sion will not have. after their controversial loss in October, they will be looking for revenge in Paris on the last day of the tournament.

The loss of shane Williams will be countered by the emergence of four young wingers with alex Cuthbert, the oldest, only twenty-one years old. Warren Gatland clearly liked what he saw at the World Cup, and is continuing to put his faith in a youthful side that has the potential to dominate eu-rope for years. With two big away games for Wales, it won’t be easy

to come out on top as this team isn’t built for instant success, so Wales may drop a few points in the tournament.

ireland go into the tournament on the back of the most success-ful heineken Cup group stage in their history, with three quarter-finalists, the most of any country this year. ulster’s emergence as a contender has given declan kid-ney further ammunition, even if he seems unwilling to use it.

The exclusion of dan Tuohy in favour of donnacha Ryan is ques-tionable, as is the continued in-

Ireland have broken their rut by qualifying for the European Championships, butTrapattoni is unlikely to change his team ahead of the tournament, writes Aaron Kennedy

“There are five World Cup rematches on the cards, with three teams looking to avenge their World Cup defeats at home”

Giovanni Trapattoni’s conser-vative selection policy will be put to the test when he

sits down to select his irish squad for euro 2012, which commences on the 8th June. since he took over the Republic of ireland job four years ago, he hasn’t made many changes, partially due to a lack of choice, but now his ho-rizons have expanded with some irish talent stepping up in the Pre-mier league and sPl.

aston villa defender Ciaran Clark has shown how he can mix with some of the best in the Pre-mier league, and will be full of confidence after making his debut against Wales in the aviva stadi-um. it is unclear as of yet if he shall join the 2012 squad, but it is also doubtful that if he does make it that he will feature in any starting line-up Trapattoni puts out.

The on-and-off form of new-castle striker leon best have left opinions split about his ability. he has failed to find the net in seven games for ireland, with many, in-cluding Trapattoni, questioning his work rate and fitness, since he normally fails to finish any games he starts with newcastle.

Two norwich City players who have made an impression in the Premier league this season are Wesley hoolahan and anthony Pilkington. both players have not had much of a look into Trapat-toni’s side. hoolihan has a solitary cap for his nation, while Pilkington is still awaiting his debut.

Pilkington has netted five times this season for the newly promot-ed Canaries, but it is his teammate hoolahan who is the most likely candidate for a spot in the squad

since Trapattoni and Marco Tar-delli have been watching him all season long, and he won his cap under Trapattoni in 2008.

ireland haven’t had to worry about their goalkeeping situa-tion since shay Given established himself in 2000, but the villa goalkeeper has suffered several injuries recently, including a torn hamstring.

if Given were to miss out on euro 2012, Trapattoni would be left with a serious dilemma. Queens Park Rangers’ (QPR) Paddy kenny gained seven caps for the Repub-lic of ireland during 2004-2006 but has not featured in a single game since. he has been solid for QPR, but he is out of favour with the italian manager, and sunder-land’s keirin Westwood is the man most likely to be called upon should Given get injured.

Cillian sheridan and anthony stokes have been impressing in the sPl. sheridan is on loan from Cska sofia to st. Johnstone and has netted four times in thirteen appearances. it is highly doubtful that he will make the squad if all the regulars such as Robbie keane and Jon Walters are fit.

anthony stokes is netting week in, week out in the sPl and it shows how efficient the striker really is. he has netted thirty-four goals in sixty-five appearances for Celtic as well as gaining four caps for ireland. along with shane long, stokes is one of the players that Trapattoni does not utilise correctly.

Former uCd striker Conor sammon will be hoping to acquire a place in the squad for the eu-ros but his hopes may be dashed due to a slow start at Wigan ath-

letic. he has netted just one goal in twenty-one appearances for the latics, and with the numer-ous striking options open to Tra-pattoni, he will most likely join the likes of best, stokes and sheridan in being left behind for euro 2012.

sunderland’s James McClean has impressed since getting a look in by new manager Martin O’neill. he confirmed this month that he would not be reconsidering his de-cision to play for the Republic of ireland, after contact from Michael O’neill to play for northern ireland.

McClean has been in fine form of late, but like many emerg-ing players, his hopes may have been dashed after Trapattoni announced that the squad who qualified deserves their place on the plane to Poland/ukraine, leav-ing new players a difficult task to try to squeeze into the squad. damien duff’s incessant injuries could see him miss out on a place, which could leave McClean with a chance to claim his role on the right wing.

Trapattoni has strongly em-phasised that he will stick to the players he used in qualifications. The two players with the stron-gest chances of creeping into the squad are James Mclean and Wes hoolahan, but even they may not make it depending on the fitness of regulars.

despite the criticism he re-ceives for his conservative selec-tion policy, changes are unlikely, since Trap’s conservatism has seen ireland qualify for the euros. however, no one will complain if his intransigence is vindicated and ireland have a successful tourna-ment.

Sean O’Brien looks on as Wales

clusion of Paddy Wallace over a number of more gifted, younger players such as eoin O’Malley or nevin spence. kidney’s selections indicate he has one eye on the end-of-year world rankings, which decide the 2015 World Cup pools.

Fergus McFadden has the unenviable task of filling brian O’driscoll’s shoes. kidney and Co. will hope that he can emulate O’driscoll’s Parisian debut back in 2000, when he scored a hat-trick in ireland’s only win in the French capital in the past forty years.

The reigning champions, eng-land, look unlikely to retain their crown. With an interim head coach in place and an overhaul of play-ers, english rugby finds itself in a state of flux. a disastrous World Cup, both on and off the pitch, has seen stuart lancaster select only seventeen players from the thirty-man squad that failed so spectac-ularly in new Zealand.

scotland’s ambition will be to overpower italy and possibly sneak a home win against anoth-

er team. edinburgh’s progress in the heineken Cup bodes well for the future of scottish rugby, but it is unlikely that they will finish any higher than fifth. Their home opener against england is their best chance to win against one of the big four.

italy, meanwhile, will have their eyes cast to the north, with scot-land at home their best chance to win, and avoid their tenth wooden spoon since they joined the com-petition, this being their thirteenth season. it remains to be seen what effect the departure of nick Mal-let will have on the azzuri, but one can’t but feel that it won’t be good. sergio Parisse can only car-ry this team so far, and their vic-tory over France feels more like a flash in the pan than a turning point.

in just under two months, we will know for sure what the an-swers to all of these questions are. One thing is certain, however; even in its 118th edition, rugby’s oldest tournament is as exciting as ever.

celebrate their quarter-final victory in last year’s World Cup. Ireland will hope to gain revenge on their neighbours when they host them this Sunday

Leon Best (bottom right), James McClean (bottom left), Ciaran Clark (top right), Anthony Pilkington and

Anthony Stokes (top left) are just some of the players Trapattoni is

likely to overlook for Euro 2012

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The University Observer · 31 January 201220

InsIde...We talk to Dave McSharry about his time with UCD RFC

page 17

The Badger’s second favourite part is Half Time. His favourite is Full

page 18

We preview Super Bowl XLVI and look at both teams’ path to the final

page 18

UCD Marian fell to an em-phatic defeat to a very impressive Dublin Thun-der team in the Division 1 National Cup final on

Friday. Coming in as heavy underdogs, but with the knowledge of the unpre-dictability of the cup, there was no way that UCD would be happy to settle for the silver medal.

Dublin Thunder are, however, an immensely talented team, no doubt possessing the most quality in the com-petition. with players such as Law-rence “Puff” Summers, Michael goj, glen wong, Isaac westbrooks and Der-ek Courtney, it is no wonder that they are the envy of the country, despite not having a league to play in.

UCD started the game very well, taking an early lead with three three-pointers from gary edge, to take an 11-3 lead. however, Thunder were not going to allow UCD to pull away from them for very long, as they began to slowly claw their way back. Scores from Sum-mers, Michael goj and Derrick Court-ney allowed Thunder to level and then take the lead towards the end of the first period.

UCD had to fight for every score, with gary edge, the only UCD player who seemed to be having any luck, lead-ing the way. Thunder finished the quar-ter with a final second buzzer-beater from Michael goj to deflate the Marian players and fans, and stretch the gap to six, 23-17 to the Northside club.

In the second quarter Thunder be-gan to pull away from UCD. They played excellent defence to keep UCD’s scores to a minimum and scored freely them-selves, with just too much of an offen-

UCD slip-up to title rivals Railway

UCD Marian couldn’t deal with a strong Dublin Thunder team on Friday night, writes Colm Lakes

UCD Ladies’ hockey team couldn’t overcome a resilient Railway Union side in Park Avenue, writes Daniel Keenan

After taking an early lead, UCD eventually slumped to a 2-1 de-feat against title rivals Railway,

who handed the Students their first de-feat of the season.

UCD began the day unbeaten and top of the table, with a game in hand over their fellow Southsiders, who were two points behind them and also undefeat-ed. Due to international commitments, both teams had to do without key play-ers; UCD were left missing Chloe wat-kins, while Railway had to do without Alex Speers, emma Smyth and Nikki evans. both Smyth and watkins were involved in the Ireland team that lost to belgium in the second build-up game to the Investec Triangular series in South Africa.

The game started off perfectly for UCD, who grabbed the lead in the first

four minutes of the match, with Jeamie Deacon scoring for the visitors after good build-up play. UCD looked com-fortable for the rest of the half, passing well and keeping Railway to minimal

scoring opportunities.Late in the first half, Railway won a

corner, which was fired across ‘The D’ and eventually slotted home by Zara Delany. The two teams went in level at

half time after a conservative first half.It was Railway who controlled the

second half, with Jean McDonnell and Julia O’halloran proving particularly impressive. They made their dominance

Action at the Division 1 National Cup Final at the National Basketball Arena Photographer: David Nowak

sive punch for Marian. glen wong and Michael goj showed a killer instinct from the three-point line, wong scoring two three-pointers in the quarter alone.

At the other end, UCD could only manage five points in the quarter and the crowd began to suspect that a blow-out was on its way. As the half drew to a close, the scoreline was not pretty for the Students, and the mood in the changing rooms was no doubt tense as they trailed 48-22. The game was Thun-der’s to lose, and without the weight of expectation on their back, UCD contin-ued to fight until the game ended.

Try as they might, there was no de-nying the superiority of Thunder. They were simply too good for their oppo-nents, and would have torn apart ev-ery other team in the competition with their performance, excluding only the equally impressive ballon. however, Marian came out in the third quarter defiant, and made sure that they creat-ed more scores for themselves than the abysmal second quarter. however, on the defensive end, they could not stop Thunder, who scored as much as they pleased. They had too many options, inside and out, for Marian to contain and continued to stretch their lead. by the end of the period, Thunder had one hand on the trophy, as the result was a foregone conclusion. At 71-37, it would take a number of miracles for any hope of a comeback.

The game’s tempo slowed in the fourth quarter, as Thunder eased off the pressure. gary edge continued to be UCD’s main scoring threat, and he finished the game as top scorer with eighteen points. however, even this valiant effort was not enough to save face, as Thunder ran out a forty-two point win and were crowned Division 1 National Champions.

UCD’s performance was far from shameful; they were simply beaten well by a special team in Irish basketball. Thunder are too good for Division 1, but are ineligible for the Superleague. Should they maintain their current squad, they could prove to be a domi-nant force in the Senior National Cup

UCD Marian

45Dublin Thunder

87

Thunder too powerful for UCD Marian

ObserverS P O R T

count, grabbing a second goal through Isobel Joyce.

Railway were happy to see the game out from there, by playing the posses-sion game and letting the clock tick down. UCD couldn’t create much with what little possession they saw near the end of the game, and the match eventually petered out for a 2-1 win to the home side. Railway’s win sees them leapfrog UCD at the top of the table, al-though UCD still have a game in hand.

UCD 1st XI team captain, Laura wil-son, was happy with the performance, even if the result didn’t go their way: “we just didn’t take our chances in the game,” says wilson, “we played well, but just couldn’t finish it.

“Performance wise, it wasn’t far off how we have been playing. but obvious-ly we didn’t get the result, which is what matters. we’re still performing well as a team. It’s only our first match back since before exams in December, so we were out of match practice.”

Meanwhile, UCD’s Men’s team bounced back from their Mills Cup quarter final loss to Three Rock by drawing with yMCA. The draw sees the Students move above Fingal, into eighth place.

having lost the Neville Cup final in December, and a respectable final position the only realistic goal for the league, the Mills Cup was UCD’s only chance for silverware this season, but after a 1-1 draw in belfield, they lost 3-1 on penalties to Three Rock.

UCD

1Railway Union

2

for many years to come.with a final score of 87-45, Thunder

player Derrick Courtney was awarded MVP for his efforts as he put in a stel-lar performance, but really any one of the Dublin Thunder players could have received the award. UCD will be upset by this loss, but currently positioned as they are at the top of the Dublin Senior Division 1, they will not lose heart or confidence.