While voting in the Sabbatical and Provostial elections last night, I was quite surprised to find a ballot paper on what I perceive to be a student referendum regarding the new student centre in amongst all of the candidates. On this issue though many might be perplexed as to the existence of such a plan, and even more so regarding the increased costs. My question is this: do we really need a student centre?
In a climate of economic stagnation, where the Trinity provost has categorically stated that austerity measures will be necessitated, is a student centre really what the students require. According to the ballot paper, an extra €49 will be added to our registration fee once the centre is completed with an increase in €2 for every ensuing college year for twenty years. On the estimation that TCD has around 16,000 students, the figure should amount to over €750,000 in 2013 (estimated completion) alone, but surely this money could be put to better use. An issue that several SU, as well as Provostial candidates, have raised in their campaigns is that TCD has the most minuscule library opening hours of any university in Ireland. Compared to UCC, for example, whose library commences at 8:00, our 9:30 start seems lazy at best. On Fridays library services terminate at 16:45, putting duress on students with a delayed timetable to get out the required material. On Sundays the library is open (sans issue desk) from 11:00 until 17.00 compared to UCD’s 9:00-21:00. We quite simply can’t compete without a serious level of increased funding.
There are of course benefits to the centre, should it be completed. According to this document: Student Centre Report.doc, the uses of the new centre will indeed be beneficial. A new student bar and gig venue are proposed as well as recreational space and a new health centre. The idea of a 500-700 capacity venue at our disposal on campus could lead to bigger acts than what we have seen previously being enticed to play in TCD. Rumours are abound though that MCD will be roped in to oversee this side of things, who will certainly get the best acts but, unfortunately, for a premium price that would be much akin to going to the Academy or the Olympia. For everything else proposed I’m not entirely convinced that they will be an extreme overhaul on what we already have. I’m certain that I’m not the only one who’s more than satisfied with the Pav being TCD’s long-standing sole watering-hole, recreational space probably amounts to a few pool tables and the current health centre, as well as House 6, are more than sufficient to answer the needs of TCD students. We have all of these things in place already and for whatever isn’t provided for on-campus can easily be found somewhere in the city centre, Trinity is,after-all, located in the heart of Dublin.
What it all boils down to though is that the €22 million required to build the student centre is A LOT of money. We live in a country where an inefficient fiscal policy and loose regulation has meant for serious sums to be wasted and such corruption has been embedded on our consciousness for years now. For both TCD post and under-graduates, our campus is akin to our country. We have an elected student representative, a provost, we pay a registration fee… What we don’t want is for another squandered fortune, wasted on a building that no one cares for or uses, when there are so many areas in college that need immediate addressing like has been done in Ireland. We should look to the mistakes of the state and see that pumping huge amounts of cash into giant projects of little substantive benefit when far purer, close to the ground issues are in need of funding. Only then can we decide if the student centre is truly needed.
Peter Twomey
