"Saskia 4 Students"
Saskia McCormack-Eiffe is one of three candidates running to be your next Students’ Union President. She is a current full-time officer in the Students’ Union, serving as Campaigns and Engagement (C&E) Officer, and has previously served in a voluntary capacity as the gender equality campaigns coordinator on the ENTs forum and the RAG committee coordinator on the campaigns forum.
She is not a member of or connected to any political party, and has never been involved in the campaign of another sabbatical officer, other than her own campaign for C&E Officer last year. McCormack-Eiffe’s active role in the union has given her a strong understanding of the union and the university, and she is able to effectively answer questions on the functioning of relevant boards and committees in UCDSU and UCD.
On why she wants to be the next SU President, McCormack-Eiffe says: “I’ve always been one for wanting to empower student voices and young people, and having been involved in the union the past couple of years and recognising that there has been a bit of an issue in terms of engagement with students, and I know that's a buzzword, I feel like I have ideas that I think could be sustainable in terms of running a union and working on issues that are large as well as the everyday issues that affect students. So I just want to throw my name in the hat, I think I'm the right person to do it for the year.”
She hails her past experience in the union as qualifying her for the role of SU President, alongside her involvement in projects outside of UCD, such as a week-long debating competition which she ran “single-handedly” in Galway in 2023.
McCormack-Eiffe believes the three main issues facing students are the cost of education, the cost of accommodation, and the rise of the far-right, stating “Students should be able to show off who they are and express who they are proudly without the fear of retribution.”
McCormack-Eiffe affirms her support for existing Students’ Union mandates to support BDS and Palestine, stating “as long as I remember, my whole family are pro-Palestinian, pro-BDS. So the union will continue to be pro-Palestinian, pro-BDS, pro-ceasefire.”
She also affirms her support for an existing mandate to provide gender-affirming products for transgender students - a motion she helped write and seconded at the time - and for an existing mandate to work with University Management to address racism, anti-migrant and refugee views on campus.
The Engagement Buzzword
As a member of the sabbatical team for the past year, McCormack-Eiffe states she believes that the ever-topical engagement problem with the union has improved this year, pointing to the fact that last year's executive elections and this year's constitutional referendum had the highest voter turnout in recent years. However, she says “There is always room for improvement”, and plans to introduce “no sabbat days” in the SU offices to increase familiarity with the union and its sabbatical officers. This is something McCormack-Eiffe has included in her manifesto, explaining “I don't think students feel like they can come up to us and just chat to us”.
Her solution of ‘No Sabbat Days’ would see sabbatical officers have their office key cards taken off them for one day every fortnight, forcing them out on the ground around campus: “Getting out, chatting to students, making sure that they know that we are around for them to come up and talk to.”
Campus Redevelopment
In her manifesto, McCormack-Eiffe states she will work on campus redevelopment, specifically highlighting the need for more microwaves and common areas across campus, as well as “third spaces that aren’t just coffee shops”. She intends to lobby relevant boards and committees in UCD to implement these goals, and gives an example of the Newman basement as an underutilised space which could be re-energised with the addition of pool tables or table-tennis equipment. McCormack-Eiffe also claims there is a need for traffic lights between Sutherland and the Village, which she says has been brought to UCD Estates but they have not committed to fixing, with McCormack-Eiffe claiming their reasons are “aesthetics”. She is keen to continue lobbying for their implementation, and adds “If I need to lie in the middle of the road so people will listen, I will. Because it's a really serious issue. It's a safety issue.”
Community
McCormack-Eiffe’s manifesto commits her to continuing the work of this years’ sabbatical team to promote the use of the Irish language. She also hopes to improve communication with students to highlight the relatability of sabbatical officers, she suggests “just having a pint with the president in the clubhouse in an evening time after your lectures” or “having a coffee in Bluebird” to show that the President is not a “high and mighty figure that’s on a pedestal.”
McCormack-Eiffe also promises to “launch and extend the UCDSU food pantry” in her manifesto; this is something that McCormack-Eiffe promised in her manifesto last year too, but has yet to materialise. She claims the process is underway, and is expected to be up and running by the end of the year, though will only be accessible on a referral basis. Once launched, McCormack-Eiffe would hope to gather data to bring to UCD management to show the need for the pantry, and lobby for funding to expand it. However, given that the food pantry has proved difficult to implement this year in her role as C&E Officer, it is unclear if the ambition is realistic for her.
Commuter Campus
McCormack-Eiffe recognises UCD as a ‘commuter campus’, and wants to hold more free events during the day for students who have to face long commutes home in the evenings. She wants to lobby for more late night buses serving UCD, stating “you could have students who are in the Clubhouse to close and then they miss the bus and they live in Crumlin or Terenure or along the S4 route.”
Though her implementation plans are vague, McCormack-Eiffe says she aims to influence the next phase of bus connects through lobbying, hoping to ideally secure a meeting with the Minister for Transport to achieve change. She points to the relative success of the SU’s ‘save the 145’ campaign this year in securing the improvements of existing routes to UCD campus from Heuston station. She also notes the fact that the SU President and C&E Officer sit on the Dublin Bus community forum, and could lobby bus drivers through this, though as the current C&E Officer, McCormack-Eiffe has had a year to sit on this forum already.
“If I need to lie in the middle of the road so people will listen, I will. Because it's a really serious issue. It's a safety issue.”
Big Issues
McCormack-Eiffe’s biggest manifesto point focuses on the ‘big issues’ facing students. She has committed to push for a rent freeze across campus, for SUSI reform, a permanent reduction in fees, and for the improvement of conditions in on-campus accommodation; a continuation of existing SU policies and aims. She will also lobby for a reduction in the €230 repeat fees and an increase in PhD stipends. On national accommodation issues, McCormack-Eiffe notes these can’t be fixed “overnight”, so her intent is to ensure “UCD students are listened to on a national level and that our voices and our opinions are taken into account by the people who can make the decisions.”
When asked what methods she intends to use to secure a rent freeze on campus, McCormack-Eiffe states “It's direct action and it's lobbying the university and whoever the university has contracted out for the accommodation to freeze.” She says “what I didn't realise last year is there's so many levels of bureaucracy to UCD that sometimes it is the only choice of getting out there and making a stink about it.”
Direct action may be the right way to go; Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union recently secured a rent freeze on accommodation in this manner. However, McCormack-Eiffe has been the UCDSU Campaigns and Engagement Officer for a year, and there has been a significant absence of direct action on campus throughout her tenure.
McCormack-Eiffe is asked if students should expect a difference in her approach next year, and if she will follow through on her commitments to direct action. In her response, she seems to contradict herself about the efficacy of “making a stink about it” versus working through committees. She states she entered her current role with “a bit of naivety, thinking everything can be solved with direct action and then I found out that a lot can be done through committees and meetings and talking to the right people. Unfortunately, I sometimes didn't know who to speak to or didn't know the outcome of something.”
She does point to the success of the 145 campaign and also the Digs drive at the start of the year as examples of “direct action” that UCDSU carried out this year which “worked quite well and quite effectively”. Next year, McCormack-Eiffe states she would “have a bit more faith and confidence” in herself, and in the fact that “direct action does work”.
In terms of fee reductions for UCD repeat fees, McCormack-Eiffe returns to a lobbying approach, and states “it's a lot of hard work and making sure that you go to the right people, whether that be the bursar and the president and probably dean of students, about all those issues and making sure, letting them know, that this is affecting students. If we have students who are unable to pay for a repeat or unable to pay for their rent and feed themselves at the same time, you really have to look at that and wonder why is this an issue and why are we not combatting it with bringing down the price of the accommodation, the price of the repeat fees?”
McCormack-Eiffe has also stated in her manifesto that she will publish an ‘explainer’ for where the student levy goes, a €254 fee paid by students each year toward the running of the student centre and its facilities, such as those used by sport clubs and societies. This information is readily available on UCD’s main website. As this would be an easy thing for UCDSU to clarify, and as a member of the UCDSU sabbatical team this year, McCormack-Eiffe was asked why this information had not been shared earlier. She replies “I'm not the one to make a decision on that. But in terms of the levy, because I think there is this kind of understanding that the SU was funded by the student levy, which it's not, ideally what I'd like to do is just create its own webpage. Whether it be on the SU website or independent of the SU website, of exactly where everything goes, like a financial report that we present to Council.”
McCormack-Eiffe believes the Students’ Union does its best to be as transparent as it can, and adds that she would “kick up a fuss” if she thought something should be better communicated. She adds that she would like to see the SU budget presented to council by a member of the board of directors in the future, something which was arranged this year after SU Council rejected the budget in October, due to a perceived lack of transparency surrounding it.
Referenda
Though not included in her manifesto, if she were to be elected, she would like to run a referendum on a full constitutional review of the Students’ Union. She states a referendum such as this one would require approval from the board of directors, adding “I didn't put it in my manifesto because I'm not wanting to promise things that I'm not 100% sure that I'd be able to carry through.”
Last year, McCormack-Eiffe had promised to run a referendum on lowering quorum and restructuring class rep elections in her manifesto for C&E Officer, something that she did deliver on during her term. However, the choice to run the quorum referendum in November turned out to be an unpopular one amongst students, with discontent shared regarding the €3,500 cost associated with a referendum that had already been put to students just a year earlier.
McCormack-Eiffe stated that the Mi Voice voting system used in the referendum was decided on prior to her term, and she was initially unaware of the associated costs. She further stated that when she became aware of the costs of the referendum, she asked the rest of the sabbatical team for permission to go ahead with it, and they were in agreement. The referendum ultimately failed to reach quorum, and hence did not pass. She states she would not run that referendum again, as it has now been run twice and “people are obviously sick of it”.
Managing the Union
Aside from being the lead representative of students in UCD, the UCDSU President is also the CEO of a parent company which employs both full-time support staff for the union, who work alongside the sabbatical officers in the SU office, and the staff in the UCDSU shops. McCormack-Eiffe says she would hope to give shop staff a wage increase, saying “we're a union, we should be paying our workers a living wage”, but notes that this is something that would have to be worked on with the board and the finance manager of the union.
McCormack-Eiffe then adds “In terms of our support staff on the corridor, if we were able, I'd love to hire another staff member, because a lot of them are doing two or three or four workloads. [...] So giving the opportunity to lessen their workload in some capacity would be great.”
A Vote for McCormack-Eiffe
McCormack-Eiffe says she has plenty of experience in leadership positions in various organisations she has worked with outside of UCD, and on her leadership style says “I think sometimes I can be a little bit lenient, but when the time comes to it, I can lock in. I'm quite communicative with my teams. With my campaign team, I let them know everything that's going on and give them as much input as possible. So that's what I'd like to be as president: as open to my team and to others as possible to give them the opportunity to [give] feedback or give me as much criticism or commendation as possible.”
On what sets her apart from other candidates in the race for SU President, McCormack-Eiffe states “I love the union, I love getting people involved. I think I can enact the change that's needed to be done, or at least kind of make people believe in the union and that the work we do really does affect them and help them. We do our usual stuff. We do our dinners during exam week and we do our support centres during the exams. Bringing stuff like that, as well as working on the big issues that I have in the manifesto, like accommodation, the price of college,
but also making sure that the union is approachable and working on the everyday things that students do find important. If they want a candidate, if they want a president like that, vote for me over the other candidates or RON.”