Belgrove RAs accused of invasion of privacy
By The University Observer Archives | Aug 24 2018
Originally published in Volume V, Issue 3 on 28th October by Observer Reporter. The UCD residences system has come under criticism in the past week, as a resident was temporarily evicted from her room without her knowledge or any forewarning whatsoever. The student, who is currently studying for her Arts finals, does not wish to be named at this point. She is a resident in Belgrove on the Belfield campus. At the commencement of the academic term, she was given her key to a room in a Belgrove flat. By last week, she had all of her possessions in the room and had been attending college as normal since the start of term. She was sharing the flat with one other student at this point, and the two were awaiting the late arrival of a third occupant in the flat. It appears that the student at the centre of the row was given the key to the wrong room at the start of the year. She was absent from the flat for the duration of the weekend, when the third occupant, an erasmus student, arrived. The erasmus student was given the same key and was puzzled to find the room already occupied. She subsequently informed the residents association of the error. RA’s decided to move the possessions of the original occupant out into the lounge area of the flat, without consulting the student herself or her other flatmate, in order to allow the erasmus student to move into the correct room. A third unlocked room in the flat remained unoccupied at the time. The student in question returned to find her possessions, including her personal items, clothing and a personal computer worth several hundreds pounds, strewn in a heap in the centre of the flat, for no immediately apparent reason. She was understandably outraged by the incident, and could not understand why the new occupant could not have been given the third spare room, was instead placed in her room, effectively evicting her without warning. The student intends to lodge a complaint with the Dean of Residences, and has accused the Residences Association of a blatant invasion of privacy. Students’ Union Welfare Officer, John Moynes, stated that this was an incident he would be looking into. “It seems like a ridiculous decision for the RAs to have in the circumstances” he stated. He also added “the girl obviously was put out by this incident. Nobody would want to return to this type of thing after a weekend away.”