Fearghal Hughes is a twenty-three year old from Drogheda, County Louth. He is in Senior Sopistor Environmental Science student. Hughes is a Students’ Union insider having been actively involved in Union politics for four years in Trinity. The last two years he has spent as Engineering, Mathematics, and Science (EMS) Faculty Convenor which means he represents all the students in that faculty.
Hughes also has been involved in societies including the Cancer society. He is proud of the charity work that he has done especially helping to establish the EMS day last year. Hughes has a long list of experience be it organizing the Science Ball for the past few years, writing for the sports section of The University Times, and playing rugby with the College team.
Speaking on his motivation to run for the position of president of the Students’ Union, Hughes’ view is that the Union “did some things right and some things wrong” over the last few years and he wants to try to continue with the successes and to improve what he regards as being done wrong.
Hughes has a couple of core issues that he is focusing on during the race. His first policy is based on the library, in particular the opening hours. He is determined to have the library open on Sundays and he says that Trinity has the worst library opening hours in the country and is very critical of the College for allowing this. He says that the moratorium of hiring staff has caused a huge number of problems for the library and he wants to find a solution to this by finding money that can be saved in other areas of the College.
His second issue regards student grants and what he says is the need for reform of the system. He regards the current grants system as outdated and in need of root and branch reform.
The Student Support Bill which is held up before the Oireachtas contains comprehensive changes to the system; Hughes intends to lobby Senators and TDs to enact the legislation as soon as possible.
Asked about incumbent Cónán Ó Broin, Hughes said that he is “doing a great job.” Hughes complimented the fees campaign and said that the President has to engage in national politics too in order to affect College decisions. The student service charge is now on the agenda because serious issues have recently been uncovered regarding the spending of the money paid by students.
Hughes says that people should vote for him because he has experience dealing with the College because as Faculty Convenor he sits on University Council which is the highest academic committee in College.
It is where most of the major decisions that affect your education are made. He says that he has already built up a relationship with the College officials and that this will make his transition easier if he gets elected.
Finally, Hughes has been involved in two presidential races in the past two years as a campaign manager for last year’s president Cathal Reilly and for unsuccessful candidate Cathal Horan. Hughes says that this has given him a unique insight into the operations of the elections.
