Two events due to be hosted by the Pav next week in collaboration with luxury student accommodation providers will no longer take place, the Chair of the Pav has confirmed, after online backlash among some students.
The Pav published a list of its freshers’ week timetable, which included events featuring LIV Student and Aparto, on its Twitter page this week. But in an email statement to The University Times, Chair of the Pav Cyril J Smyth said: “I have confirmed this evening with the manager of the Pavilion Bar that no event/function involving LIV/Aparto is taking place in the Pavilion Bar next week.”
“I have no idea if LIV/Aparto is hosting an event elsewhere in College next week”, Smyth said. “It does not concern The Pavilion Bar.”
Students had earlier hit out at the Pav, which gives its profits to Dublin University Central Athletic Club (DUCAC), for hosting the events.
DUCAC is one of five capitated bodies on campus and the body in charge of funding Trinity’s 50 sports clubs.
Speaking to The University Times, Aislinn Shanahan Daly, a member of Trinity PBP, said that the Pav “is a group that’s supposed to run on behalf of students in the College, but then they’re facilitating luxury student accommodation companies to come in and basically promote themselves”.
Conor Reddy, a member of Trinity PBP, told The University Times: “Liv and Aparto charge students extortionate amounts for rent. They’re really profiting off the crisis students face and suffer through every day.”
“I think that really, students should think about where they spend their money on campus”, he said. “If campus organisations are going to enter into agreements and deals with these companies, then we should bear that in mind when we’re spending our money.”
The events were advertised on the bar’s Twitter page, and outlined that LIV Student and Aparto would be operating information stands at the venue on Thursday and Friday respectively, for five hours each afternoon. The tweet has since been deleted.
Smyth admitted that the poster referenced the Pav, but said he had “not seen the document before”.
The poster bore the logo of Trinity Ents, which is running an event in the Pav on the Friday of freshers’ week. In a statement to The University Times, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President Laura Beston said she’d asked the Pav to take the Ents logo off the poster given the “negative impact that these for purpose accommodations such as aparto are having on our students and the unreasonable price of these places”.
Beston said TCDSU is “very grateful to have the strong relationship that exists between us and the pav and we appreciate all they do to support us during the year”. However, she added that “we feel our logo should be removed from the graphic in question”.
The event was criticised by Trinity People Before Profit (PBP) on its Facebook page. “No student-run body should do business with corporations like Liv or Aparto”, the group wrote in a statement.
“With the college administration putting up opposition to rent caps for student tenants and raising on campus accommodation prices by 6.2% this year, an ever-worsening housing crisis and an increasingly precarious student body, DUCAC should flat out refuse to work with companies that are profiting off our misery.”
Smyth said: “I have no idea who Trinity People before Profit are.”
Reddy urged TCDSU to condemn the affiliation between the Pav and these bodies. “I think they should work for an understanding with College that there isn’t this kind of commercial cooperation with student accommodation providers and the College, be it the Pav, College itself or any of the commercial units on the campus.”
The University Times contacted Liv and Aparto, but neither was prepared to comment.
