The fourth and final University College Dublin Students’ Union (UCDSU) sabbatical officer has come out in favour of impeaching Katie Ascough, President of UCDSU.
Welfare Officer of UCDSU, Eoghan MacDomhnaill, announced his support for the impeachment campaign on Facebook, in an open letter to students tonight.
MacDomhnaill said in the statement that he “hurt” his friends “for nothing” by supporting Ascough, when he thought she was “being vilified for her mistakes”. He condemned Ascough’s comments that called “other sabbatical officers as sexists and liars”, but “calling our campus media biased and incompetent”, he said, “is the final nail in the coffin”.
On Monday, MacDomhnaill’s fellow sabbatical officers, the Campaigns and Communications Officer, Barry Murphy, the Education Officer, Robert Sweeney, and the Graduate Officer, Niall Torries, announced their support for the impeachment campaign, announcing their intention to take annual leave in order to campaign for Ascough’s impeachment.
Today, the three sabbatical officers announced they would have to return to their positions in the union. The Independent Appeals and Disciplinary Board (IADB), the union’s ultimate judicial authority, overturned UCDSU Executive Council’s vote to allow the sabbatical officers to take annual leave until Friday, after the referendum.
MacDomhnaill went on to defend the media’s role in the referendum: “Media are here to hold elected officials to account, they inform everyone about the facts of the matter, so far neither paper have been asked to retract any information they’ve printed i.e its all being factually true.”
“Giving out that they are printing too much true shit about you is like arguing that the polio vaccine was wiping out polio too well”, MacDomhnaill argued.
When it was revealed that Ascough had removed abortion information from the UCDSU Freshers’ guide Winging It, MacDomhnaill, while defending Ascough, condemned the move, calling it “bullshit”.
Voting in the impeachment referendum began today in UCD. Turnout has already reached approximately five per cent, according to a union official who spoke to The University Times on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorised to release such information.
In normal referendums, the union would typically see only two per cent turnout at this point.
Ascough can only be impeached if 10 per cent of students turn out to vote, and the referendum is won by a simple majority.
At hustings yesterday evening, there was a high turnout in support for Ascough’s impeachment. Students became more angered at her answers and explanations throughout, after her defence descended into attacks on student media.
Correction: 00:08, October 26th, 2017
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article said that Eoghan MacDomhnaill commended Katie Ascough’s comments about the other sabbatical officers being “sexist and liars”. In fact, he condemned them.
