At 8.32pm on Friday, Amy Kennedy was elected as the new President of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU). Kennedy was elected on the fifth count with 1,952 votes, making up 44.9 per cent of total valid votes cast.
After redistribution of votes, Kennedy ultimately came 304 votes ahead of Grace McNally, the incumbent candidate, who gathered 1,648 votes. Cathal Horgan was eliminated on the fourth count, having amassed 1,103 votes. Jonathan Hoffman was eliminated on the third count with 626 votes and Tadhg Ó Neil on the second count with 379 votes, after the initial redistribution of 78 votes for RON.
Kennedy, the current LGBT Officer and former Gender Equality Officer for TCDSU, was the frontrunner of the poll conducted by the University Times, having received 38.4 per cent of first-choice votes ahead of Grace McNally, who gathered 27 per cent of votes in the poll. Kennedy’s manifesto contains four key areas of access, equality, engagement and divestment. She plans to “solve student issues”, create a “welcoming” Students’ Union, as well as prioritise student housing and food affordability on campus.
In a statement to University Times, Kennedy said, “I’m really, really excited. I think it could be a really good year. I’m quite overwhelmed, so I’m probably not as articulate as I would like to be.” She called the highly-contested race a “difficult” one, stating, “there were a lot of really good candidates”. “I’m very excited to get into it and see what can happen, but I also need to get back to my assignments … a bit of all around chaos, but yeah, very good times. I’ve got excited to see what I can do.” Her statement finished with a pledge: “I want to make things better.”
Additional reporting by Manasvini Naren, Weronika Brzechffa, and John Crofton
