Owen Bennett
Editor
Trinity College Students’ Union will remain an affiliate of the Union of Students in Ireland following the victory of the ‘No’ side in the USI referendum. The ‘No’ side won the referendum by 1496 votes to 829, a margin of 667 votes. In total, 2,431 votes were cast with 106 judged to be spoilt.
‘No’ campaign manager Jack Leahy spoke of his ‘delight’ at the end of ‘a very long campaign’. He offered commiserations to the campaign manager of the ‘Yes’ side, Mark O’Meara saying he ‘put in a lot of hours’ and ‘really did a great job’ throughout the two week campaigning period.
O’Meara congratulated USI and the members of the ‘No’ campaign on their victory and said he hoped Trinity students now had a better understanding of USI and what the annual eight euro USI levy goes towards.
O’Meara called on USI to live up to campaign promises, saying ‘reform is still badly needed’. ‘This was a reality that was recognised by both campaigns and hopefully reform is still going to occur’.
On the issue of reform, Leahy accepted that ‘having talked about it so much, we now have a responsibility to lead some sort of reform within USI’. Leahy concluded by saying he was ‘absolutely delighted’ to be involved in the reform of the national students’ union.
In a statement released this evening, TCDSU President Rory Dunne said ‘Trinity students have voted to remain affiliated with USI and as always, TCDSU will work within USI to ensure the interests of Trinity students are heard both within the organisation and at a national level’.
