Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) has apologised for excluding important information about the breadth of this week’s constitutional referendum in its weekly email sent out last night.
The email said that the referendum “seeks to address typos, misprints and attempts to remove conflicting passages of the constitution”.
However, the proposed amendment included 77 changes to the constitution, several of which will have consequences beyond fixing typos and conflicting passages.
One of the major proposed amendments would remove the voting rights of the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) President at Union Forum, which consists of part-time officers, faculty convenors and sabbatical officers as well as the chair and secretary of council, who are both non-voting members.
Another amendment increases the size of the Oversight Commission, while a separate change removes the ability of the Education Officer to deem that a part-time officer has resigned from their position should they miss three meetings of a union body without giving apologies.
In an email statement to The University Times, TCDSU Education Officer Megan O’Connor apologised, saying: “It was an oversight on behalf of the Electoral Commission. The intention was to provide a very short summary of the changes, but it was too concise and left important information out.”
“The intent has always been to ensure full, non-biased information is circulated on official TCDSU social media’s [sic] and in emails to all students, regardless of whether they registered to vote or not. This is to ensure maximum transparency surrounding the issues presented by the referendum.”
“The content of the weekly email was meant to briefly summarize the intentions of the referendum”, O’Connor said.
“We have an extensive document with the details of every proposal in the referendum and accompanying impartial information on each point, which will be circulated to all students as soon as possible.”
O’Connor confirmed that “a follow-up email clearly outlining all proposed changes will be circulated to all students shortly via email and on our social media”.
The email also had a document attached, which detailed the proposed changes. TCDSU has since circulated an email to all students with specific details about the referendum.
The referendum was proposed by STEM Convenor Daniel O’Reilly and seconded by former TCDSU President Laura Beston at Council in April.
Speaking to The University Times, O’Reilly said: “This is legitimately me as an individual officer, getting very annoyed at the amount of typos in the constitution. I wrote this entire thing in one night.”
“I stayed up the night before the council submission deadline, and I wrote all 77 amendments in one go.”
Commenting on the errors in the TCDSU email, O’Reilly added: “It wasn’t wholly inaccurate, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. At the end of day, it’s just kind of a cleaning up.”
O’Reilly is also heavily involved in the constitution review working group, having written the terms of reference for that group.
However, when asked if he believed that the material changes proposed in this referendum should have been examined by that working group, rather than be included in this referendum, O’Reilly said: “I wouldn’t say so – I really don’t think it’s that big of a thing.”
“The GSU president, as I said, didn’t show up – in the entire time I’ve been in Union Forum, the GSU president has never shown up”, he added.
Correction: 7:55pm, November 9th, 2020
An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that one of the proposed changes would give the Education Officer the power to dismiss part-time officers. In fact, the change in question removes the ability of the Education Officer to deem that a part-time officer has resigned if they miss three meetings of a union body without giving apologies.
