PhD students and postdoctoral students will emigrate if they continue to be paid less than the living wage, Seanad candidate Hazel Chu has said.
Speaking on Newstalk’s On The Record programme, Chu said that despite not being a Trinity graduate herself, she has strong ties to Trinity graduates, who will vote in the upcoming bye election to replace Ivana Bacik.
Chu said: “I’m a Pembroke councillor – a good portion of my constituents are Trinity graduates or are graduates that were living in Trinity Hall. And last year as Lord Mayor, Trinity College was at my doorstep.”
“I spent a long time talking to graduates … a lot of people go: ‘Well, why this seat, now?’. I spent the last year talking to graduates on what we could do better. And even in terms of third-level reform, we need to start providing PhD and postdoctorates [with] a living wage, otherwise they’ll end up going abroad. We need 40 per cent of women on boards in university.”
Host Gavan Reilly put it to Chu that one of her opponents, Gisèle Scanlon, is president of Trinity’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) and that if voters were most interested in those issues, perhaps they would vote for her. Chu responded: “I think Gisèle is a very good candidate, but I’ve been told by a lot of candidates, a lot of graduates: ‘Why don’t you run?’”
“So it’s not the case that I just woke up one morning and thought, well, I’ll just go and run for this. I went to speak to a lot of people before I declared, I took my time declaring. And part of what I think I can bring is that experience and also that connection, being able to work with these ministers.”
Chu ran as an independent candidate in a Seanad bye election last year after Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said he would not vote for her.
The Irish Times reported at the time that a number of Green TDs were unhappy with Chu’s decision to run as an independent as they felt it would stoke divisions in the party.
Chu told Reilly: “You don’t always get along with who you work with, or you don’t even get along with your family sometimes, or like them, but you respect them and you work with them. I think after my five and a half years of being Chair of the Green Party and being National Co-ordinator, on the executive of the party, I think a lot of people within the party will say I am a team player.”
“I helped manage the party to a situation where we’ve gone from a handful of councillors to the historic 12 TDs, four senators, and 48 councillors”, she continued. “I was part of that management team. I was part of the behind the scenes.”
Chu’s announcement of her intention to run this week brings the number of confirmed candidates on the ballot to 10. Hugo MacNeill and Tom Clonan, who have contested Seanad elections for the Trinity panel before, are running once again. GSU President Gisèle Scanlon and PhD students Ryan Alberto Ó Giobúin and Ursula Quill are also running.
Also on the ballot are barrister Ade Oluborode, former Green Party councillor Sadhbh O’Neill and psychotherapist Paula Roseingrave.
Former diplomat Ray Bassett is also bidding for the seat.
