As campaigning officially gets under way, candidates for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President delve into their manifesto promises, with issues over how their policies will be funded, whether they are achievable and the difference they will make arising during recent interviews with The University Times.
With the position of president somewhat less defined than that of the other officers, and with presidents given a national platform, each candidate has interpreted the role differently. While candidates have tended to largely agree on the main issues, such as favouring the repeal of the eighth amendment and standing against the introduction of fees, each of their manifestos has looked more closely at different aspects of the role.
Thomas Emmet has chosen to focus more on local issues and ensuring representation of the College’s student body through policies including the organisation of town hall meetings for students on union matters. Contrastingly, Bryan Mallon has opted to address working on more broader issues, from accessibility to higher education to Northern Irish students, through existing Trinity programmes. Kevin Keane’s manifesto covers a broad range of policies, from local to union to national issues by touching upon improvements to the 24-hour library facilities, reducing union waste and the ongoing accommodation crisis.
Thomas Emmet
Thomas Emmet, a final-year history student, is running on a platform of representation. His campaign motto of “Your Union” percolates throughout the manifesto, with Emmet’s promises split into two sections under the headings of “Bringing Your Union to You” and “Getting Involved in Your Union”. One of Emmet’s promises under this theme of representation is to introduce a series of town hall-style meetings to create “open and safe” ways for students to discuss and debate the union, its services and its campaigns away from the formal setting of council.
In his manifesto, Emmet – currently the union’s Environmental Officer – points to how such meetings had proven effective in last year’s environmental campaigns, particularly for Fossil Free TCD, and says that, as TCDSU President, he would mandate the sabbatical officers, the union’s part-time officers and campaign leaders to hold two town hall meetings each semester.
When asked how such meetings would be able to bring value to and include minority opinions, Emmet cited the repeal movement as “the best example right now” of needing to open up discussion within the union and listen to dissenting voices. Emmet pointed to a recent debate by the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) on unrestricted access to abortion as an example of how such discourse can be beneficial. However, he does not go into specific detail on how he would ensure that minority voices would be heard and represented at these meetings. He neglects to clarify how these meetings would attract students who would presumably otherwise not attend TCDSU’s council meetings, a forum that is open to all undergraduate students to attend and speak.
In response to a question on how he would ensure a strong turnout at these town hall meetings from students who would not normally attend council and other union events, Emmet says that this could be done by inverting the speaking ratios seen at council. He states that union officers and convenors “speak for 80 per cent” of the time, whereas regular attendees only speak for 20 per cent of the time. Emmet would like to see this ratio “absolutely flipped so that the union is not doing as much speaking as the people who are there”.
“[This] encourages the new people to come in because they’re not going to be sat in front of the same people saying the same things again and again.”
Emmet’s manifesto proposes that TCDSU sabbatical officers be mandated to attend and support society events in order to “widen the visibility” of the union across campus. In response to a query as to whether this could lead to sabbatical officers attending events held by the societies which their friends are involved in week-after-week, Emmet states that “you’d have to be really, really strict about that not happening” and that it would be up to the president to make sure that such a situation does not develop. He does, however, admit that “it might take longer than my term here as president to sort out those kinks”.
Emmet would also like to see that the sabbatical officers actively engage not just within House Six during their office hours but outside too, including off-campus, in order to enable “more students to interact with the union”, particularly the education and welfare officers. When asked whether issues surrounding confidentiality and privacy could arise if students are coming to officers outside of their offices in communal spaces, Emmet suggested that for such situations, perhaps going back to the sabbatical officer’s office could suffice, “but that brings us back to the same problem”. Emmet then proposed that, for example, students and the officers could find a classroom to discuss the issue in. However, seeing as Emmet and a University Times reporter had been unable to find a classroom in the arts block during the day to conduct an interview, whether this solution is practicable has not been finalised.
Emmet’s manifesto interestingly focuses more on local College issues rather than national ones. When asked about this at last night’s media hustings, Emmet responded by saying that his “manifesto addresses the one issue”, representation, very deliberately, but that he also has “strong feelings on national issues”. This, for Emmet, will not “weaken the union” and the union already has “a great basis on national issues” to work from.
Kevin Keane
Final-year law student Kevin Keane, running under the slogan of “Think Big”, has launched his manifesto based around empowerment and inclusivity. His manifesto, broken down into “Campaigns”, “Empowering People”, Improving Services” and “Reducing Waste”, opens with a reference to the union’s higher education funding campaign, noting that “college has to be accessible”.
When asked how he would influence this national student issue as TCDSU President, Keane reiterated the same stance that he mentioned in a previous interview with The University Times. He believes that a combination of student-driven campaigns “hand-in-hand with informed strategic lobbying efforts” is what would be required. Keane imagined how this could play out by suggesting a scenario where, in his capacity of TCDSU President, he would be “taking meetings” with the likes of Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, and being able to support the union’s position with “the promise of actions and of not just rolling over if they say no in meetings”.
Keane’s manifesto insists on a promise to “support the development of a student centre”. The development of a student centre has now been included in the College’s new estates strategy. When asked how he plans to support this, Keane responded by saying that he could support its development by ensuring that a new student centre “fits what people actually want”. Although he had not yet spoken to a college official on the matter, he believes that that is not necessary yet as at this stage, the union needs to “talk to students about what students want and what students would like to see from a student centre”.
“Once we have that in our back pocket, then we go to the Dean [of Students] and the Bursar.”
Regarding his manifesto pledge to have the union “take its place in the national conversation” on repealing the eighth amendment, Keane said that the repeal movement in college did not have to “reinvent the wheel” as the national movement is “happening and strong”. However, he does feel that the strength of the movement on campus lies in “supporting people to either make up their minds here or to feel accepted here” regardless of which side of the issue a student comes down on. Keane continues by pointing to the ongoing work of the TCDSU lobby group and the union’s submission to the ongoing Citizens’ Assembly on the eighth amendment.
When asked about how he would ensure that minority voices would be heard and not lost among the majority, Keane acknowledges that this is a “difficult thing to do” before suggesting holding fora “where people can query things” and inform themselves on different aspects of the debate. Developing such inclusive fora has been a point that all presidential candidates have agreed on, including some other candidates in this year’s elections.
Keane also promises to have the union’s part-time officers hold office hours fortnightly. Addressing concerns over space, he proposed an “open forum” model where all of the part-time officers meet in the TCDSU kitchen in House Six once a fortnight and any student can take their issue to the appropriate officer(s). In response to concerns over confidentiality that may arise in this situation, Keane admits that “specific personal office hours to the LGBT [Rights Officer] and maybe one or two others might be necessary”.
Keane also promises to add another 24-hour library space in the Hamilton Library in addition to the existing facilities in Kinsella Hall. Keane has spoken to Librarian and College Archivist, Helen Shenton, on the feasibility of creating such a space. Keane said that Shenton assured him that while it is “ambitious”, it is something that “she thinks is doable”. “It is a huge lobbying issue and the gears of college move slowly, but it is something that I really really think can be looked at.” Keane explains that major refurbishment and infrastructural improvement is not necessary to turn an existing space in the Hamilton Library into a 24-hour space but concedes that while addressing staffing concerns would also be “doable”, it would be, like the whole project, “difficult”.
Bryan Mallon
For fourth-year Irish studies student Bryan Mallon, accessibility forms a core part of his campaign. In his conversation with The University Times, Mallon highlighted his experiences with the Trinity Access Programme (TAP) and his wish to expand the programme’s operations. When asked where the funding for such an expansion would come from, Mallon points to numerous potential sources.
Firstly, Mallon suggests that one way to extend the reach of TAP would be by encouraging more volunteers to go back to their schools and talk about coming to Trinity as “it doesn’t cost more money to ensure you have a presence on the ground”. Mallon also mentions lobbying the College to talk to Trinity alumni to explore further avenues of contributions towards expanding accessibility. Finally, Mallon briefly states that, as TCDSU President, he would also call for more funding for TAP, but notes the need to “be real here” and acknowledges that it will not be him “that’s going to allocate the funding”.
Another wing of accessibility that Mallon endorses in his manifesto is increased accessibility for students with disabilities. Speaking of what he calls “simple solutions” to making College more accessible to people with disabilities, Mallon suggests low-cost but effective means of doing so. He points to College installing accessibility features such as the wheelchair ramp into the Exam Hall, asking “what’s wrong with having a few ramps like that to help things out?”
“That doesn’t cost too much, why don’t we actually look at a stairlift in buildings that can’t be changed?”
Mallon’s manifesto sets him apart from the other candidates by including a section on Northern Irish Trinity students, which has proven coincidental following a motion mandating TCDSU to hold a preferendum on what stance the union should take on the reunification of Ireland passing at the most recent meeting of TCDSU Council.
Mallon explains that the issue of Northern students is “very important to me”, remarking upon the barriers that face potential students in Northern Ireland in deciding to come to Trinity, particularly in the wake of the Brexit referendum result last June. Mallon does not suggest that a new system for bringing these students to Trinity would be necessary, but again reverts to stressing the benefits that investment in TAP can play, particularly in these circumstances: “It’s hard enough to get people to go back [to school] in the South, but we can get more to go back to the North and tell them ‘you can actually come to Trinity’ as well and you can actually come to the south of Ireland … it’s an internal and national issue.”
When asked about the centrepiece of his manifesto, equality, Mallon speaks of “spreading these [issues] out to everyone”. He suggests spreading them out by incorporating areas of student activity that would usually not engage with the union’s equality efforts, specifically many of the sports clubs. Mallon cited the difficulties faced by trans students in joining gender-specific sports teams and that solving such issues would come down to “conversation”. However, he does not explain precisely how this “conversation” could be developed effectively.
When speaking about the movement to repeal the eighth amendment, which Mallon supports, he refers to the conversation around the topic, pointing to the need to move the debate on the matter from a confrontational battleground to one where the union listens to and engages with students on the matter. Mallon adds that it is important to be “reasonable” when addressing this matter, but again did not go into detail about how he would go about “switching the conversation”.
Throughout the conversation with The University Times, Mallon did not shy away from acknowledging the limitations that face the role of TCDSU President, particularly regarding the allocation of funding to College and union services, programmes and campaigns but emphasised his intentions to lobby and fight for increased capitation in a variety of areas including mental health, accessibility and sport.
