The University Observer breaks down what was discussed at the first meeting of UCD Students Union Council of the 2024/25 Academic year.
On Monday 30 September UCD Students Union held its first Council of the Academic Year, with more than 100 students in attendance in The Fitzgerald Chamber. Members of Council consist of the SU Sabbatical Officers (President, Education, Welfare, Graduate, Campaigns and Engagement, and Entertainment and Events), College Officers, and all elected Class Representatives from across the Colleges.
The first item of the agenda saw the re-election of Council Chairperson Niall Torris, who will be serving his fifth session as chair, and his tenth total council session when including his time as a student in UCD.
Cillian Murphy was elected as Deputy Chairperson and led the first sitting of council as Chair Torris was absent. Murphy said he was delighted to be acting as Deputy Chair after being a member of council for the previous four years as a Class Rep and as Engineering and Architecture College Officer last year. Murphy made a short address to council attendees, hailing the importance of student movements over the past year in particular, making a “big impact in multiple different spheres.”
Quorum was clearly met, and called as such, and brought Council One to a start.
Council passed a motion with one amendment to adopt a new Union Housing Policy. The motion was proposed by UCDSU President Miranda Bauer and seconded by Campaigns and Engagement (C&E) Officer Saskia McCormack-Eiffe. The ‘Beds for Our Brains’ Union Housing Policy mandates the SU to run campaigns which highlight housing issues and lobby for policy changes, at both government and university level, which would tackle the housing crisis and push for affordable housing for students.
The amendment to the policy saw the wording of Policy Core Principle No.4 change from ‘Opposition to Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) as an asset class’ to ‘Opposition to Student Accommodation as an asset class’, in response to a question which raised the distinction between affordable-PBSA and luxury-PBSA.
The Union Housing Policy will further mandate the establishment of a Student Action Group for Housing (SAGH) which will drive housing related initiatives, and will engage in actions which assist in the implementation of the Union Housing Policy. SAGH will continually review the effectiveness of the Union Housing Policy, and recommend changes to the Union Council, as well as submitting its own interim and annual reports.
The Union Housing Policy lastly mandates that C&E Officer McCormack-Eiffe has responsibility for ensuring that awareness of the SAGH reaches UCD students. The SAGH is open to any member of UCDSU, therefore all UCD students, and will be led by a steering group composed of the SU President, the C&E Officer, and three members of the group.
The Second Motion brought to Council detailed the SU’s demand that Sabbatical Officers continue to lobby the Government for the full abolition of the Student Contribution Charge, further detailing their plans to advocate for the establishment of a sustainable model of public funding to enable Universal access to Higher Education.
Having read the motion, a Council Member asked Education Officer Tia Cullen if the abolition of the student contribution charge would include International Students. How the motion applied – or whether it did at all – to International Students would resurface as a question or criticism in one form or another for the rest of the discussion. Another Union Member asked if the motion included the abolition of the student centre levy, to which SU President Miranda Bauer stated that it didn’t, as support for the levy had previously passed in council. Next, the discrepancy between the fees International Students and Irish students pay was raised, resulting in a proposal that they be included in the Motion. The original Union Motion never mentioned them specifically.
A speaker against the proposal made the following argument: that drawing International Students in as an amendment would dilute the motion as the issues were too different from the framework of what had been originally proposed.
The Deputy Chairperson then argued that the International Student/Lobbying UCD question would potentially warrant a different amendment. After a debate on how best to word this amendment, a member of Council proposed a procedural motion 9N – which would order the question “not be put”, thus moving the motion to the next Council Meeting.
This counter-proposal was soundly rejected by Council Members. Surmising the discourse over the Motion, the Education Officer acknowledged the importance of the question on International Student fees, and said that it would be best suited to a separate future Motion.
The Deputy Chair steered the conversation back to one of the original proposed amendments, ‘Whether or not the Union wanted to add International Students to the original Motion.’ This was resoundingly rejected by Council. Finally, a Class Rep proposed a procedural motion 9A, calling for an immediate vote on the original version of the motion. It was subsequently approved.
With the exception of the Law College Officer, who was not present at the time of reports, all Sabbatical and College Officers had their reports passed with clear majorities. Some notable segments of reports included that of Welfare Officer Ciara Donohue, who has been successful in providing more trans-affirming products through the Union, such as binders, tape and tucking underwear.
Donohue expanded on the provision of these products, stating that a motion passed last year laid the track for these resources, and will provide an information sheet about the use of these products upon their distribution.
Another notable report came from Architecture Officer Stephen Mullen, who detailed his success in providing more food and drink options to students in Richview, including a falafel bap and salad to include vegetarian, kosher and halal food options to students who use Earl’s Deli in Richview.
Across many of the officers’ reports, questions were raised by various postgraduate student representatives from Smurfit Campus about postgrad events. One student directed a question to ENTs Officer Neo O’Herlihy regarding events for postgrad students, and was told that plans were in place to provide them with more exclusive activities, separate from the postgrad pub crawl which was held during Orientation Week as mentioned by Graduate Officer McCardel.
To close the first council of the term, the Deputy Chair listed an Item for Agreement. The ‘UCDSU - CATU Memorandum of Agreement’ was approved by the Union Executive, which contains all the SU Sabbatical Officers and College Officers. The purpose of the agreement is to “deepen the cooperation between UCDSU and CATU”, as both students and renters are “groups that often interlink and face the same or similar challenges”, as stated in the Item for Agreement. The document continued, “this agreement seeks to formalise the relationship that already exists between the two organisations.” Presented at council, attendees were asked to vote on whether they felt comfortable with the item’s approval outside of council. As there were no speakers against the agreement, the item was brought to a vote, passing unanimously.
Contributing Writers - Oisín Gaffey, Lucy Warmington, Adam Behan and Joshua McCormack