The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) decided not to vote on an anti-war motion this morning, after a lengthy debate about Irish neutrality and colleges’ links to the Irish Defence Forces.
The motion noted that “institutions are spending student money on facilitating the war industry through unethical investments”.
If passed, it would have mandated the USI’s national executive “to take a stance that Ireland should remain a neutral country and support organisations working towards peace and neutrality”.
It would have also mandated that the USI’s Vice President for Equality and Citizenship to support students’ unions “in lobbying their institutions to divest from the arms-industry”.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President Leah Keogh said: “In the past year, we’ve had a worrying acceleration of EU militarisation which is a threat to all citizens but students too.”
“Ireland is supposed to be a neutral country, but I know that Shannon Airport is still fueling US military planes to facilitate international conflicts and this is why neutrality is imperative”, Keogh said. “We in Trinity FOI’d our college … we found that Trinity alone had €2.5 million invested in the arms industry and this facilitates apratheid among other international conflicts and this, Congress, is student money.”
TCDSU delegate László Molnárfi also spoke in favour of the motion. He said: “These arms and weapons manufacturers, they view the wars and the subsequent refugee waves as opportunities for making money. This is disgraceful.”
“Everyday lives are lost. Families are destroyed because of the oppression that the military industrial complex continues to wage on our world.”
“Through this motion, we can challenge this. Through divestment we can send a strong message that we as a community of students do not see the arms industry as a legitimate industry due to the mass human and environmental devastation they cause the world”, he added.
A speaker in favour of a procedural motion to not bring the original motion to a vote said that it was “too loose” and that there was a better motion that dealt with a similar topic.
When the motion was being debated, he previously spoke against the motion and said that while he agreed with the spirit of the motion, the “Defence Forces do put money into the colleges and colleges put money back into the Defence Forces” and that it is not fair to college students who may wish to join the Defence Forces.
Another speaker argued that the motion should be put to a vote, as individual students’ unions could opt out of lobbying for divestment if their colleges’ offer courses funded by the Defence Forces, as the motion contained the phrase “where applicable”.
He also said that students’ unions “do want to divest, do think that students’ money should not be used in the war industry” and this “can be supported by USI”.
The procedural motion was passed and the anti-war motion was not voted on by Congress.
Despite ultimately deciding not to vote on the motion, the USI Congress heard a number of speakers arguing for and against the motion.
Another speaker, who was a member of the Irish Defence Forces prior to starting university, also backed the motion and said “Our neutrality gives us a reputation at an international level to conduct the fantastic peacekeeping work that we do. Ireland has the longest unbroken streak of UN peacekeeping across any country in the world”.
