In the run-up to the academic year, students’ unions around the country are getting into gear to push for a referendum on the eighth amendment.
With hopes for a referendum in spring 2018, students’ unions are starting to organise themselves for large-scale involvement in the national campaign.
Yesterday, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) opened up applications for a new committee for the repeal the eighth campaign, a 10-member committee chaired by the union’s president.
Speaking to The University Times, TCDSU President Kevin Keane explained why the union set up the committee: “The idea behind the committee is that we want to have a concerted, coordinated and organised approach to our repeal campaigning for the year.”
While the committee will hold meetings regularly by themselves, open-forum style meetings will also be organised for Trinity students by the union, as they were last year. Keane emphasised that while the committee will manage a lot of the organisation of the campaign, they “still want as many people involved as possible… as many diverse opinions, backgrounds, thoughts and experiences as possible”.
One of the main campaign events this year is the March for Choice, which will take place on September 30th and will be attended by many students’ unions across the country. In March, the March for Choice was held on the same day as Strike for Repeal and was attended by 8,000-10,000 people, with numbers from students’ unions bolstering the crowds.
While most unions have mandates from their students to support the repeal the eighth campaign, others are still working to pass theirs. The National College of Art and Design Students’ Union (NCADSU) did not have a mandate to support the campaign and couldn’t take part in Strike for Repeal, an event which saw 3,000 participants, including 300 Trinity students, go on strike and take to the streets to demand a referendum. They have since held a referendum, which gave them a mandate to support the campaign. They plan to have “an active presence”, the President of NCADSU, Ross Kelly, and Vice-President of NCADSU, Sam Casey, told The University Times by email.
Having recently rejoined the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), Casey and Kelly stated that the union would “be working with USI on a national scale to repeal the eighth”. Speaking about the type of campaigns NCADSU will be running, they said: “We have a broad range of young creative individuals ranging on all levels of experience and practice who the union wants to involve in a creative approach to repealing the 8th amendment.”
Maynooth Students’ Union (MSU) will also be very active in their participation in the repeal the eighth campaign this year. In an email statement to The University Times, the President of MSU, Leon Diop, highlighted the three main focus areas of their campaign: “Getting people registered to vote in a rock the register campaign, secondly giving info across campus and thirdly, actually bringing people in to vote whenever the referendum may be.”
Diop also noted that the union would “work hard” to ensure that pro-life students are not neglected. However, he stated that “MSU has a mandate, the students have spoken and we must campaign to repeal the 8th amendment”.
In Trinity, the first bout of campaigning will take place during Freshers’ Week. This follows the work of last year’s students’ union, which placed a heavy emphasis on campaigns. The following week, the union will run “Empowerment Week”, a themed campaign week in which the repeal the eighth campaign will “play a central role”, according to Keane. As chair of the new repeal the eighth committee, he plans to educate Trinity students, run events with guest speakers and eventually start a voter registration drive similar to the one that was run for the marriage equality referendum.
Keane and TCDSU Communications and Marketing Officer, Una Harty were elected to sit on USI’s repeal taskforce, which will focus on coordinating the national campaign for students. Keane stated: “We have top-quality campaigners here. We have people who are really passionate. Our job is to harness that passion and to put structure on it and to get the most out of the repeal movement as we can.”
It was only last week that students’ unions officers from across the country gathered in Athlone for their first national council of the year. Colm O’Gorman, the Executive Director of Amnesty Ireland, spoke to them, alongside Repeal Project founder Anna Cosgrave and Ailbhe Smyth, the Convener of the Coalition to Repeal the Eight. It was students’ unions, they were told, who could help play a crucial role in the campaign.
TCDSU held a referendum on the issue of supporting the repeal the eighth campaign in 2014, which resulted in the union supporting the campaign, with 73 per cent of the vote.
Speaking about the importance of the campaign to students, Keane said: “I think repeal is the biggest social issue we have faced since marriage equality. It is without question a student issue… There is no question or doubt that students in Trinity and across the country have been affected by the eighth amendment and are continually affected by it. It is an infringement on the rights of our students.”
In April, after months of deliberation, the Citizens’ Assembly voted to recommend that the eighth amendment should be replaced or amended, rather than removed from the constitution. A day later, the assembly voted to support legal access to abortion in Ireland with no restriction as to reasons given by a woman.
