Chair of Council Daniel Walsh began the first council of the 2024/25 academic year warning students that the “first council is notorious for the sheer quantities of elections held”. A queue of students stood outside the Dargan Lecture Theatre in order to register before the Council began. Education Officer Eoghan Gilroy opened the Council with a procedural motion A to skip the agenda item, Matters Arising. Queues remained outside the Dargan Lecture Theatre to register as Council began with the reading of Officer Reports.
Officer Reports
The motion was passed and Sabbatical Officer Reports and Questions proceeded. Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President Jenny Maguire kicked off the sabbatical report stating that it has been a “crazy start to the year for the Union, we’ve abolished every metric that we’ve had in the past, [and] we are consistently achieving previous metrics of previous unions.” The president was followed by Education Officer Eoghan Gilroy who largely spoke about his work over the Summer concerning the integration of postgraduate students into the Union. Gilroy notably mentioned the large number of Class Representative (class rep) nominations this year, with 710 people being nominated for class rep positions.
The meeting continued with Welfare and Equality Officer Hamza Bana who discussed his efforts to combat racism, including the establishment of a Union of Students Ireland mandate for the creation of ethnic minority support groups on campuses. Communications and Marketing Officer Beth Strahan followed and discussed successful marketing campaigns, as well as a more than 100% increase in revenue this Freshers’ week and the physical rebranding of the union.
Oifigeach na Gaeilge, Pádraig Mac Brádaigh then delivered his report in Irish, reporting that it’s no exaggeration that he did a huge amount of translation over the summer. Mac Brádraigh further commented on his plans to develop an Irish language constitution for the union so that all union services are available in Irish.
He said he hopes to see more Irish on campus and in the union. Mac Brádraigh also said he is working on developing the Irish language constitution for the Union so that everything is available in Irish.
Ents Officer Peadar Walsh concluded the Sabbatical Officer reports, with discussion of the organisation of postgraduate events, a sold-out club night, five late-night events and Pav Fest, for which Walsh said 1,000 tickets were sold in one day. Lastly, he mentioned exciting upcoming events such as a big Pav night event this Friday and the ‘Ravetacht’.
Elections
Elections began with the election of the LGBTQ+ Officer and then moved on to representatives for the Education Committee. After a number of speeches had been given by the nominees for Mature Student Representative, the Chair of Council and members of the Oversight Commission and Electoral Commission realised that “we missed a nomination on Zoom” for the role of Access Representative, which initially went uncontested.
Technical Problems
Technical issues ensued, including problems with broadcasting a nominee’s speech over Zoom causing elections to be further delayed. Council, with an original 6:30 pm start time, had already experienced a fifteen-minute delay in start time due to slow registration. At 8 pm, Chair of Council Daniel Walsh announced that council would have a 9 pm finish time, despite Education being the only committee election completed, with seven further committee elections remaining.
Education Committee Elections Last Over an Hour.
Gilroy submitted a procedural emergency motion D to increase the number of OCMs on his committee from two to ten members due to the Officer’s goal to create increased College-wide academic policies for AI. There were ten people nominated for the Education Committee OCM position. All nominees were deemed elected.
Speech time was cut from 45 to 30 seconds for first-year representatives on the welfare and equality committees and all further committee speeches onwards at approximately 8.15 pm. Repeatedly, elections flitted from one committee to another without all committees being fully elected. The Student Representative studying the Dual BA programme winner was not announced until a person in the crowd asked for the information, interrupting another ongoing election.
Speeding through the agenda, Bana paused the election for Trinity Joint Honours (TJH) committee OCM to request a motion to approve the Student Parent/Carer Fund Terms of Reference (TOR). This motion was passed. The motion aims to adopt the TOR of the Student Parent/Carer fund so student parents and caregivers can be reimbursed for costs related with childminding during the mid-term break.
Just before the 9 pm cut-off time, Gilroy proposed a procedural motion with a request to extend the cut-off time by “10 to 15 minutes” in order to get all of the committee members elected. At this time there were five committees left for election. The motion was passed under the condition of 15 extra minutes allocated beyond the original 9 pm cut-off. Nonetheless, the meeting still ran six minutes over the additional 15 allocation, with elections results left to be announced.
Nominations for biennial member and oversight commission in the electoral commission were called, but the election (not held).
Despite delays caused by technical difficulties, the meeting was cut off at 9.21 pm, leaving out a motion for technical officer and discussions about postgraduate common room cleanliness and student resources at the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI), amongst other business indicated on the agenda.
Additional reporting contributed by Natalia Kamendy, Molly Wetsch, and Brídín Ní Fhearraigh-Joyce.
