Edmund Heaphy | Deputy Editor
Jailbreak has secured alternative insurance for Maynooth University (NUIM) teams to participate in the event this weekend. Earlier this week, Maynooth University had refused to insure its student participants, in an unexpected decision.
The St Vincent de Paul Society of Ireland (SVP Ireland) is insuring the Maynooth participants as individuals.
Speaking to The University Times, Ali Kelly, Project Manager of Jailbreak, said: “We secured an indemnity from SVP Ireland, indemnifying the Maynooth participants as individuals. It came through this morning after a huge amount of work from all the JBHQ team, the Maynooth reps, Trinity’s insurance department and SVP Ireland.”
Kelly said that Aisling Byrne, Jailbreak’s Head of Fundraising, came up with “ingenious idea” to ask SVP Ireland to insure the participants.
On Monday, Maynooth University informed Jailbreak that it would not be insuring Maynooth participants, a move which Jailbreak called an “arbitrary, last-minute decision”.
For students to participate in Jailbreak, their college typically must indemnify their participation and “show evidence of their public liability insurance”. Colleges were told this in early December, Jailbreak have said. Jailbreak proceeded with the competition with some of the insurance permissions pending, they said, as it was necessary to “proceed with the competition”.
In an email to Maynooth participants on Monday, the Maynooth branch of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, who are responsible for the local organisation of Jailbreak in Maynooth, had blamed “a lack of or unclear information that Trinity officials provided”, combined with “false promises we received from our own staff members”.
On Tuesday, Matt Duffy, the President of the society, and the Jailbreak representative in Maynooth, clarified those comments saying that it was actually completely down to the “refusal” of Maynooth’s Health and Safety Officer, Brendan Ashe, to “express his problems with the event to the relevant Trinity officials”. This led, he said, to Ashe “only discussing the indemnity in detail” with Trinity officials “yesterday [Sunday] morning”, and “hence led to him doing a U-turn on signing the indemnity”. Ali Kelly had also refuted suggestions that the problem arose as a result of communication problems on Trinity’s part.
So far, Jailbreak has raised over €46,000 for its two charities, St Vincent De Paul and Amnesty International. This figure has already broken previous fundraising totals, and is almost half of their €100,000 goal.
This year, significant changes have been made to the competition’s structure. Teams will be tasked with reaching a specific mystery location for the first time. Jailbreak begins at 9am tomorrow, Saturday.
Maynooth University did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Jailbreak can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and on their website
You can text Jailbreak to 50300 to donate €4 to the two charities.
