The College View Issue 11

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

thecollegeview.com

. Est. 1999 .

CRC’s decision to rerun BDS and drug referenda to be appealed Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque Deputy News Editor @BrendanFKP

DCU’S Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) society are appealing the decision to not accept the results of the referenda held during the Students’ Union (SU) election.

On March 20th, the Class Representative Council (CRC) voted against accepting the results of the referenda.

As a result, it was decided that the referenda would be ran before the end of the semester.

SJP delivered a motion contesting the CRC’s decision at an emergency CRC held on March 26th. The motion said the CRC’s vote was unconstitutional based “on the grounds that the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanction] referendum achieved all constitutional requirements.”

According to the chairperson of DCU’s Students for Sustainable Drug Policy (SSDP) society Declan Moore, SSDP was told that it was a possibility it could be brought to the CRC – not a guarantee.

Moore said: “We wished SSDP had been informed of the decision to bring the matter before CRC because it would have allowed us to partake in the discussion in some way and help us prepare for the next steps in this campaign.”

SJP similarly faced issues with miscommunication, particularly with Democracy & Development Officer Podge Sheehan. Stephanie O’Toole, chairperson of SJP said that Sheehan, in general, has been co-operative and operated an “open-door policy”.

She said: “He is genuinely very excited that students were engaged in the democratic process in DCU.” Issues only arose for SJP after the referenda results were not announced.

O’Toole said that the SJP campaign team were only made aware the referenda would be voted on in the CRC after receiving a screenshot of the motion by a class representative.

“We were not told by Podge or the class reps… I mention that because I think there was an onus on the class

Features

reps,” she said.

While a class representative did tell SJP about the CRC motion, the class representative in question was Cormac Ó’Floinn. Ó’Floinn is an Ordinary Member on the SJP committee.

O’Toole had meetings with both Sheehan and SU President Vito Moloney Burke on March 27th, but can still say “nothing concrete” about the referenda.

Moore said that SSDP has been “fairly underwhelmed” by Sheehan’s performance on the issue overall. He said: “We were making attempts to get a referendum since early semester one but it would appear Podge was never available to meet with us in all that time nor able to respond to any mails.”

Sheehan told The College View that both societies were informed that the issue would be brought to the CRC. He added that: “a formal notification was not issued which appears that this may have contributed miscommunication.”

Moore attributed the lack of communication to “pure complacency” to engage with SSDP. “I think us not being contacted about the decision is essentially just laziness,” he said.

He added that he supports SJP in their effort to contest the CRC’s decision to not accept the referenda results.

SJP tried to reverse the decision at the last emergency CRC, but there were not enough class representatives present for a vote to be considered valid. The society plans on holding another emergency CRC as soon as possible to try and hold the vote.

If they are unable to hold the vote or if the CRC does not accept their appeal, both referenda will have to be rerun.

They would take place during week 11, along with another new referendum on introducing smoke-free zones on campus.

Sheehan said that having the referenda so late in the semester could present challenges around scheduling, particularly as students focus shifts toward completing course work.

He added that: “it certainly can be done and we shouldn’t let scheduling issues get in the way of democracy.

Sports

Ireland’s success and struggles in the Special Olympics Page 20

Page 21

They sang to a sold-out crowd of approximately 1,300 people.

Credit: Aoife O’Brien

New gender identity policy excludes non-binary students Nonetheless, O’Reilly said there as possible and to work within the exBrian Mahon Contributor @thecollegeview

DCU’S new gender identity policy has failed to take into account non-binary students.

DCU LGBTA Society Chairperson Dean O’Reilly told The College View that his “greatest disappointment (if that’s the word) with the policy is that non-binary students have been left behind yet again. As the policy puts forth procedures in line with the Gender Recognition Act (2015), of which does not allow individuals to self declare gender outside of the binary, the same stands for DCU students.”

O’Reilly said it was a “real shame” that non-binary students essentially have to “wait their turn” for laws to catch-up to the reality of the individual experience, adding that the five-year time review for the policy was too long.

Author of the report and Director of Student Support and Development Claire Bohan said she hadn’t got that feedback from the society but added that they “now need to see the policy being used and come to life and we can learn as we go and work with student groups who are happy to help with that development”.

The policy said it is due to be reviewed at five year intervals.

were some “fantastic elements” to the policy.

“Under the Student GI policy, harassment or bullying or discrimination of any member of the university is not tolerated on the premise of gender identity or expression,” said O’Reilly.

“As someone who is rather non-conforming in their own gender identity, I’m comforted that this safeguard exists.”

Rubberstamped last week, the policy on gender recognition states: “Gender identity and expression is a positive, core part, of being human and experiencing wellbeing and fulfilment.”

The policy document, which will inform how DCU interacts and engages with students on this issue, states that the university supports an inclusive environment of dignity and respect, “whereby anyone can develop to their full potential free of discrimination”.

Additionally, the policy commits DCU to provide “reasonable accommodation” to any community member that is undergoing social or medical transition while also removing “unnecessary gender distinction” within the university.

In return, DCU is seeking from those students who may be undergoing social or medical transition to inform the university of any support needed as soon

isting deferral or postponement system of examination and assessments.

The policy also states that DCU is working toward a more inclusive sports arrangements and asks that any students that faces difficulty accessing physical or team sports to contact the university about the matter.

The document lays out how DCU will work with a student to help them transition, should the need arise and sets out a number of steps the university will take to ensure the student is safe and comfortable.

O’Reilly added that he would have seen it as a “personal failure” if the policy had not been enacted during his time as auditor. He also said an “imperfect policy” was better than no policy at all but “after all this time it is finally available to the students that need it.”

DCU will not be putting new funds to ensure this policy is implemented, instead, reallocating existing funds to the policy.

“We will re-direct existing funds if required for training. Many members of SS&D staff have had training from TENI and found it excellent. As we move along, we’ll decide who is required,” said Bohan.

Opinion

Gaeilge

News

Let’s talk about sex baby

Laethanta saoire mar mhac léinn

And that’s what you missed on Glee

Page 13

Page 16

Page 7

Editorial

2 INSIDE The Hype

Editor-in-Chief Callum Lavery

Film/TV Ricky Gervais comes to terms with the afterlife Read on page

Fashion

Tailoring for Tattoos Read on page 15

Books/Theatre

Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends exposes the Dublin upper class Read on page 8

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Callum Lavery, Deputy editor: Gabija Gataveckaite

Illustrations editor: Roise McGagh

News editors: Cáit Caden, Ellen Fitzpatrick & Emily Sheahan Deputy News editors: Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque, Catherine Gallagher, Roisin Phelan

Images editor: Alison Clair Deputy Images edit: Michael Walsh

Production editors: James Nolan & Rachel Halpin Features editor: Gabija Gataveckaite Deputy features editor: Ciara O’Loughlin Arts editor: Aoibhín Bryant Deputy arts editors: Sarah Barrett & Aine O’Boyle Lifestyle editor: Lorna Lawless Deputy Lifestyle editors: Beibhinn Thorsch & Eoin Harte

Chief Sub-editor: Roisin Cullen

Podcast editors: Lucien Waugh Daly, Niamh Dunne & Ian Brennan Sub-editors: Ellen Butler, Róisín Phelan, Sabrine Donohoe, Clara Kelly, John Morley, Eoin Harte, David Kelly, Alex Barrett, Emma Costigan, Becky Ferris, Anja Zauers, Roisin Maguire, Shauna Burdis, Ruth Delaney, Sara Rountree, Dáire Denby, Tara McGahan, Lauren Allen, Natasha Lynch, Thomas Hamilton Contacts

Gaeilge editor: Clíona Hughes Deputy Gaeilge editor: Jordan Hussain

editor@thecollegeview.com

Sports editor: Gerard Grimes, Deputy sports editors: John Morley & Hugh Farrell

features@thecollegeview.com

Opinion editor: Orla Dwyer, Deputy opinion editor: Clara Kelly

gaeilge@thecollegeview.com

Social media editor: Amy Louise Donohoe & Roise McGagh Video editor: Dara Browne, Deputy video editors: Donal Corrigan, Jenny Wong, Sathishaa Mohan, Lauren Timlin

news@thecollegeview.com

opinion@thecollegeview.com

sports@thecollegeview.com Thanks to Sportsfile, SLC, Office of Student Life

Follow our journalism online:

Facebook: The College View Twitter: @thecollegeview Website: thecollegeview.com

I

Editor’s piece

t is with great sadness but also with great pride to say that this will be the final issue of the College View under my leadership.

I would like to thank you all for your support over the past year, for reading and sharing our articles, and I hope that the College View has brought you all a greater insight and understanding to what is going on in Dublin City University and on student issues across the country.

I would like to thank my editorial team for their hard work and dedication over the past year. I know there has been sleepless nights and tears shed to produce each issue of the paper.

I appreciate that they have given up a large majority of their time to make the paper what it is today. For those in their final year this sacrifice has been the greatest and I am forever in debt to them for working so hard and putting up with my grumpiness on rough days.

We have broken some amazing stories this year, from the A&F scandal, to the nurses strikes, to covering events across all three campuses. We have had some breakthrough features published about student homelessness and the lives of sex workers in Ireland.

We printed heated articles in our opinion columns and maintained our link to the Irish language in our Gaeilge section.

Our Sports team have worked hard to cover as many fights and games across the Island, while our Arts and Lifestyle section has made the Hype one of the best student magazines around.

Our video team, photographers, and illustrators have worked hard to keep our readers interested and invested. While our podcast team has delighted our ears with two more podcasts each week than last year.

I would like to say a special thank you to my deputy editor Gabija Gataveckaite who is not only an amazing journalist in her own right, but a fantastic editor and dear friend.

To next year’s editor and deputy Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque and Aine O’Boyle. I wish them the best of luck and I look forward to seeing the amazing work they will do in the coming year.

I am so happy to know that the paper will be in very safe and capable hands next year.

That’s all from my end, thank you for pretending to read his part of the paper each week to sustain my ego.

My time as editor has been the most stressful time of my life, but I would not have had it any other way.

3

News

DCU says no to alcohol in Londis Cáit Caden News Editor @ AreYou_Caden_Me DCU Londis were granted planning permission for an alcohol licence, however DCU have no plans to use this licence at the present time.

The prospect of alcohol being sold on campus in the DCU Londis may be possible, if certain restrictions are put in place.

“DCU may decide at a future time to allow off-licence sales in the Londis Unit on campus under limited and very controlled conditions but this is not under consideration at this time,” said a DCU spokesperson.

It is not yet known what “controlled conditions” need to be considered in order for DCU Londis to be able to sell alcohol with their newly granted planning permission to do so, or what kind of alcohol they may be permitted to sell.

There is currently no off-licence section in the chain’s branch on the DCU

Glasnevin campus, although most Londis Retail shops have one, however DCU Londis recently won a planning dispute to include one.

DCU Londis Retail Manager at DCU Donnie Christian stated that “at this time” he does not have anything to add to the statement provided by the DCU spokesperson, when he was asked for an on the record comment.

At the beginning of the academic year a source told The College View that DCU Londis were in touch with Sober soc about student alcohol consumption, even though DCU Londis do not yet sell alcohol.

DCU Londis are in favour of promoting alcohol awareness with Sober soc according to the source.

“We will sell alcohol in a very controlled manner which encourages a responsible approach to the consumption of alcohol,” said a DCU official to The Times Ireland edition.

It was not specified whether this quote was in relation to the selling of alcohol in the college bar, NuBar, or in relation to the newly granted permission DCU

USI hustings talk student media, free fees and referenda Aine O’Boyle Deputy Arts Editor @ainyerrrr UNION of Students in Ireland (USI) hustings highlighted the need for improved communication between students’ unions across the country and student media organisations.

“There is a growing body of student media,” said USI Presidential Candidate Oisin Hassan, “and the USI don’t have a clear plan or mission on how to improve communication between the two groups.”

Hassan said they need to “revamp the USI website and make it more available”. Presidential Candidate Lorna Fitzpatrick echoed this sentiment, saying that student media organisations should have a direct relationship with students’ unions.

“All documents need to be online, as well as those of sub-committee meetings,” she said.

The USI Hustings took place in DCU on Tuesday, March 27th, where the candidates were each allocated five minutes to present their manifestos to those in attendance at the Emergency Class Representative Council.

The Emergency CRC saw record low numbers in attendance and was unable to reach quorum in order to produce a binding vote on the candidates.

CRC Chairperson Helen Wade said to the council that this was the first time this year that CRC has not reached quorum, with 37 class representatives being required to ensure a binding vote on

matters presented to them.

DCU Students’ Union Vice President for Education and Placement Craig McHugh is the only candidate representing DCU in the USI elections.

He is running uncontested for the position of VP for the Dublin Region with USI. When asked about the proposed referendum that would see DCU students voting on affiliation with USI, McHugh said that as it stands, there is no referendum taking place.

McHugh also added that he would definitely be in support of a referendum as part of the student movement, and that he was elected to the DCUSU team and will ultimately follow their decision.

Core to several manifestos presented to the Emergency CRC was the need for publicly funded education. “‘Free fees’ are €3,000… The education system is crumbling around us,” said VP for Campaigns Michelle Byrne.

According to VP for Academic Affairs candidate Kevin McStravock,

Alcohol will be sold in DCU Lons if certain restrictions are put in place

Londis has to implement an off-licence.

DCU’s stance on alcohol sales is that they recognise “students are purchasing and will continue to purchase alcohol for consumption on campus,” a DCU official told The Times Ireland edition.

“I don’t think it will affect Nubar. Most certainly not,” said a spokesperson from college pub in relation to the possibility of an off-licence being attached to DCU Londis.

“NuBar is a bar and restaurant where people come to meet and have fun and laughs all while having food and drink, an off licence in Londis is the same as an off licence in spar at the top the ave-

nue,” continued the spokesperson from Nubar.

Director of Eurospar on Ballymun Avenue Edward Glennon tried to stop permission for an off-licence to be granted to the DCU convenience shop, by lodging an appeal against the decision

by Dublin City Council who approved the opening of one.

Glennon’s argument was that Europsar, which has an off-licence, was 500 metres away from DCU. He also argued that a “university campus was not suitable for an off-licence because it ran counter to the university’s reputation as global sports campus promoting healthy and active life-

Credit: Alison Clair

styles,” according to The Times Ireland article.

Glennon lost the appeal and DCU Londis can open an off-licence as a result.

If an off-licence is introduced into the DCU Londis in the future as a result of the new planning permission, it is unclear where it might be placed.

It will not occupy the space where Hodges and Figgis campus bookshop used to be, as this will be converted into a stationary shop.

Although DCU Londis won their case, An Bord Pleanála refused permission for a convenience shop in Shanowen Square to include part off-licence use on March 12th.

Awards all round for Clubs and Societies Roisin Phelan Deputy News Editor @ _roisinphelan

DCU’s Clubs and Socs Awards took place in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on March 28th.

The awards, which are highly anticipated by the various clubs and societies members, took place after a meal and were broken up by performances from DCU Dance and DCU Glee.

The most prestigious awards, Club of the Year and Best Society in a Cultural, Academic or Social Field went to DCU’s Ladies Rugby Team and DCU Drama Society respectively.

Clubs and Societies Finance and Development Officer Siobhán Byrne said that the awards “represent a culmination of all the hard graft that the stu-

dents have put in throughout the year.”

“The work that students do outside of the classroom is just as important as the work in the classroom. We place huge value on the holistic development of the student and these awards are one way of recognising this development.”

Chairperson of Sober Society, Adam Healy echoed Byrne saying the awards were, “a reminder for all students that they can get awarded for all of their hard work...It inspires people to get involved.”

Chairperson of RAG Society Hannah Leonard spoke about how “surreal” it felt to win Best Society in a Charity or Civic Field for the third year in a row. She said, ”what means the most to me is people who are so selfless get to be appreciated properly for the work they do.”

She thanked a “well rounded and

dedicated committee” for the win as well as “so many people outside of RAG volunteering this year.”

Other notable awards included Most Promising Society, which went to Redbrick, and the Best New Society which was given to the International Erasmus Student Network.

The Best Event of the Year was awarded to DCU Style Society for their fashion show which took place in The Helix, Team of the Year was awarded to DCU men’s athletic country squad and Best Poster of the Year was received by the Mental Health Society.

The artist behind the winning poster, Hayden Guy told The College View what society life meant to him.

“I learned a lot from being in Mental Health Soc and I’m very honoured to be a part of such a great society in DCU,” he said.

“students are viewed as consumers”.

“No student [should be] forced to choose between working an extra shift or attending a lecture,” said Fitzpatrick.

Hassan noted that the USI must challenge the idea of a student contribution and lobby the government to conduct an urgent review of the SUSI grant with Brexit looming ahead.

The awards took place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel

Credit: Alison Clair

4

News

DCU set to host ANAM festival this month Mary Ryan Contributor @thecollegeview

DCU is set to host the second annual ANAM festival in early April, following its successful run last year.

The arts and culture festival, which runs over two days on April 3rd and 4th, was created to celebrate the work of local artists from the North Dublin and surrounding areas, in collaboration with staff and students at DCU. This year’s festival will be sponsored by Fingal County Council, Dublin City Council, the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and Neogen.

The programme for ANAM 2019 was curated by musician Philip King and South Wind Blows, the production company behind the “Other Voices” live music series, which will be holding a live showcase on Thursday.

Mary Colgan, Operations Officer in the President’s office, said this year’s programme was “quite powerful” and that they were “very proud” of the 2019 line-up.

“We want this to be long term, we

Credit:Alison Clair

want it to be not simply DCU, we want it to be DCU very much in its community, in it’s North Dublin Community we’d like to work with other

stakeholders in the region,” she said.

Rap duo Tebi Rex, spoken word poet Natalya O’ Flaherty, and alternative rock band Delorentos are sched-

NUJ casts referendum to cut University Times funding Catherine Gallagher Deputy News Editor @ Cather_i_ne

THE National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) ethics council has strongly defended the professional standards of The University Times’ coverage of alleged hazing by the Knights of Campanile society.

At the end of February, reporters from The University Times (UT), one of Trinity College’s student newspapers, observed what they believe was the start of an initiation ceremony organised by the society.

The UT reported the initiation moved to the on-campus apartment of the society’s president. Reporters placed a recording device near the apartment door. The device was subsequently discovered and taken by a member of the Knights of Campanile.

Based on notes taken by reporters listening close to the apartment, the article was published on March 15th.

It stated that society members were jeered and shouted at. It added that members could be heard being told to eat butter, followed sounds of people by gagging and retching.

The attempts of reporters to record the event has resulted in heavy criticism. A petition has brought about a referendum which will take place this month to ask students to vote on a proposal to significantly cut the paper’s funding.

Seamus Dooley, official spokesperson for NUJ Ireland denounced the plans for a referendum: “The referendum is intended to deprive the UT of funds. It has been initiated by vested interests who oppose the legitimate, investigative journalism of the newspaper. The decision to hold the referendum has been influenced by a mis-

uled to perform Thursday night, along with fellow Dublin artists Mango X MathMan and KTG. Events will be held across all three

Dublin Bus now connects universities in the capital Aine O’Boyle Deputy Arts Editor @ainyerrrr

Reporters from The University Times observed what they believe was the start of an initiation ceremony organised by a male-only society.

representation of the ethical practices of the Editor.

“In that context, this referendum is a threat to editorial independence and to the viability of UT,” Dooley told The College View.

In his opinion, Dooley said that student journalism in TCD is compromised. However, he welcomes the support from other journalists and the general public across social media in the wake of the fall-out.

“Student newspapers matter to the student community even if no one outside the college gates is aware of their existence.

Credit: Roise McGagh

“This issue is given an additional importance because of the involvement of a secretive society with a prestigious membership and long history,” he said.

Journalists took to Twitter to advocate their support of the UT’s coverage, such as the political editor of the Irish Times Pat Leahy, acting editor of TheJournal.ie Christine Bohan as well as former editors of the UT. Editor of the UT Eleanor O’Mahany and TCD Student Union President Shane de Rís were unavailable for comment at time of going to print.

campuses in DCU, with a number of masterclass, discussion panels, films, live readings and concerts, including a photographic exhibition from Vukašin Nedeljković, in collaboration with volunteers seeking asylum in Ireland, and a live reading from author Melatu Uche Okorie and members of the local “Fighting Words” programme.

DCU President Brian McCraith said the success of last year’s festival was a “clear sign” that locals support the university’s attempts to create a North Dublin Cultural Quarter.

“We believe this year’s event will be yet another step in achieving that goal and we look forward to welcoming DCU staff, students, alumni and the wider community to celebrate with us and enjoy an inspiring line-up of talent,” he said in a statement.

Most of the scheduled events will be free of charge, with the exception of the “Other Voices” showcase and “Heart of Rowl”, a concert of contemporary folk and Irish traditional music hosted by All Hallows campus. Both performances cost €15, or €12 for DCU students.

DUBLIN Bus has rolled out a new route connecting all major universities across the city.

The new 155 route will operate seven days a week, making transport between DCU, Trinity College and University College Dublin more accessible for students and commuters.

The service commenced on Sunday, March 24th and runs from Ballymun to Bray, operating every 20 minutes in both directions.

The 155 will serve the larger commuter areas of Glasnevin, Drumcondra, Stillorgan and Cabinteely on its route.

The new route came as a surprise for many, as despite being advertised several weeks in advance, users of the Transport for Ireland web page were initially unable to access real-time information or stop numbers.

These issues have since been resolved and real-time information and stop numbers are now available on both the Dublin Bus app and the TFI website.

The 155 is a welcome addition to the Dublin Bus services, particularly following recent claims that Dublin

Bus drivers are refusing to stop for students at UCD. Students in UCD have expressed dismay at drivers on the Dublin Bus routes of the 46a, the 11 and the 145 for not stopping for students on campus from 10 pm onwards.

On January 31st this year, Dublin Bus tweeted that the buses don’t stop on the campus due to “frequent anti-social behaviour”.

UCDSU President, Barry Murphy told TheJournal.ie that on-campus security only witnessed one incident of anti-social behaviour during this period of time.

Murphy told The Irish Times that hundreds of the 28,500 students and 6,000 staff who often study or work late on campus were greatly inconvenienced by the drivers’ actions.

Many students have been forced to wait up to 40 minutes for a bus to stop for them on campus, others were simply forced to pay for a taxi home, often costing between €50-€60 for the full-journey, compared to the €2.25 or €3 that it should have cost for them to take Dublin Bus. “We are currently awaiting progress with Dublin Bus and the Driver Unions with resolutions hopefully coming soon,” Murphy told The College View.

News

5

DCU startup seeks to double funding for homelessness app Aine O’Boyle Deputy Arts Edtor @ainyerrrr A group of DCU students are enlisting public support in their mission to eradicate homelessness in Ireland.

The start-up, GiveBack.ie, recently won funding of €50,000 with the Google.org Impact Challenge and are looking for the public to vote for them in order to double this funding to €100,000.

“Doubling our funding will help support the work we do in partnership with Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH), allow us to scale our operations, and bring us one step closer to realising our shared vision of ending the homelessness crisis in Dublin through a transitional housing program,” said co-founder of GiveBack.ie James Gallagher.

Co-founder Victoria Ryan-Nesbitt said she was walking down Abbey Street

several years ago and saw a homeless woman wearing a jacket with her secondary school crest on it, looking for spare change.

“This really made the message hit home for me that homelessness can affect anyone, and it gave James and I the motivation to try do whatever we could to help solve the homelessness crisis,” she said.

GiveBack.ie can be downloaded as a Google Chrome extension. When an online purchase is made, a percentage of the total cost of the purchase is donated to ICHH, without any extra cost to the consumer.

“The funds raised through the GiveBack.ie app will be initially used to directly fund transitional housing with onsite wrap around supports for those who are forced to rough sleep. This has the potential to seriously impact the way in which we challenge homelessness in Ireland,” said CEO and co-founder of ICHH Anthony Flynn.

GiveBack.ie was co-founded by James Gallagher and Victoria Ryan-Nesbitt.

“I co-founded GiveBack.ie with Victoria because we wanted to empower those that did not have a voice. Ireland’s rate of child homelessness is the highest in Europe and this should not be morally acceptable on any level,” said Gallagher.

GiveBack.ie has partnered with several large-scale retailers, including Amazon, ASOS and Hotels.com.

In October 2018, they worked in conjunction with Enactus DCU to represent Ireland in the Enactus World Cup, held in Silicon Valley.

“We want to show that students can make a difference and that homelessness is not normal. There are systemic factors that have led to the current crisis - if we address those, as other countries have done, we too can make ending homelessness a reality, instead of merely managing homelessness as is the philosophy of our current government,” said Gallagher.

Credit: GiveBack.ie

Government cut funding for third-level education by €15 million

The Business Post broke the story that the government had cut its funding for third-level education.

David Kelly Sub-Editor @daveidontknow THE government used money gained from businesses to cut its own funding to third-level education by €15 million.

Since 2017, businesses have been hit with a training levy increase of 0.1 per cent for two consecutive years, bringing in an extra €92 million for the government. However, the Department of Education then used this to replace its own funding.

“The government has increased the National Training Fund levy which we supported and encouraged. But they have reduced the funding from general taxation, putting a greater share of the burden on business” said Thomas Byrne, the Fianna Fáil education spokesman.

The Department of Education used €51 million of the new income to subsidise its funding. It did provide an extra €36 million, comprising a sum of €20 million to cover pay rises for third level staff, under the public sector pay agreement, and €16 million for extra student numbers.

However, this still left a gap of €15 million. According to the government’s revised estimates, the “general grants” allocated to third level education was decreased from €1.007 billion last year to €991 million this year. Incidentally, the third level population has increased to 162,000.

Credit: Sabrine Donohoe

The move has been criticised by both business group Ibec and the Irish Universities Association. “We need a political decision made about how we can develop a sustainable funding solution for third level and keeping the training fund for upskilling and retraining” said Claire McGee, Ibec’s senior education policy executive.

She also said that using money from the National Training Fund would not solve the third level funding crisis.

An expert report that was released in 2016 recommended either introducing higher student fees, a student loan scheme or increased state funding. The Oireachtas education committee was supposed to produce a cross party report in response but has not been able to.

The government has rejected two of these recommendations, with increased state funding remaining the only option. Opposition TDs have demanded to know how exactly the annual shortfall of €600 million outlined in the 2016 report will be met.

“His government has been unwilling to commit to the scale of investment needed over the last series of Budgets since 2016 to meet the Cassells’ Reports targets, and as it stands the state will be unlikely to meet the first benchmark of an additional €600m by 2021 over 2015 funding levels for the sector,” Catherine Martin, deputy leader of the Green Party, said.

Stokes building finally gets bins allocated Amy Donohoe Social Media Editor @amydonohoe1 BINS have been allocated to the Stokes building in DCU. The bins have been finally added to the building in week eight of semester two. The €11 million expansion to the building opened in July 2018.

Dianne Lagma, who is studying Intellectual Disability Nursing, raised the issue at Class Rep Council (CRC) in February. She said: “the class was tell-

ing me that they have been filling their bags with rubbish and been carrying it all around. I also raised awareness of the situation because it seems hypocritical that we are promoting sustainability and the state of the lecture rooms was purely disgusting.”

“Ergonomically speaking, it’s not healthy as well, when I raised it during CRC I was told it’s because we weren’t allowed to eat in lecture rooms in the first place. But it doesn’t justify the amount of rubbish being left behind,” she added.

“Coming in and out of the lecture rooms you’d find bottles, crisps, and chocolate wrappers.”

Engineering student Sele Clement raised the issue during the first semester to the governing body of the program board: “they said they had plans to implement bins in DCU and they were just figuring out the logistics of it, we didn’t know what that meant so we just gave them time to do it.”

“During the second semester we realised they weren’t really doing it so we called them out again and at the

last program board meeting, they said that bins will be rolling out very soon and last week they rolled them out,” he added.

According to Clement, it took about six months of effort to get the bins in the Stokes building after repeatedly asking for help and sending emails to the program board leaders. He was also apart of conducting surveys which asked students what they wanted to be changed in Stokes “Before the bins, the Stokes building was messy at times because you’d

find litter on the floor and I felt bad for the cleaners as it was just unnecessary work for them to pick up all the rubbish of the floor,” Clement said.

He explained that recycling bins were implemented around the building, but they weren’t enough.

“I feel like the addition of bins is welcomed by all engineers and everyone that uses the Stokes building. I think that it will reduce the amount of rubbish and there’ll be less work for the cleaners,” he concluded.

6

News

Santry housing project called ‘student accommodation in disguise’ Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque Deputy News Editor @BrendanFKP

A proposed residential building in Santry is student accommodation in disguise, according to a Ballymun councillor.

People Before Profit Alliance councillor Andrew Keegan criticised the development of the Swiss Cottage housing project, which would be made up of housing units as well as a café, a restaurant and a store.

He described it as a “vulture fund looking for maximum bang for its buck,” at the Dublin North West committee meeting on February 20th. He added: “That [residential units] will be dilapidated in five years – I can guarantee you.”

Concerns were also raised by Labour councillor Andrew Montague, who said that height was a major issue. The building will range from three to six storeys high.

Montague wanted a shadow analysis to be done, as the property will be built

The Swiss Cottage Bar and Restaurant will be demolished and replaced with the build-to-rent housing units.

beside two-storey houses and could potentially leave their gardens without light.

Keegan also called Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy an idiot and said that the Swiss Cottage proposal made him furious. He said: “It’s well thought out for making profit, but not for community gain.”

While each apartment will have individual kitchens, there will also be supplementary shared spaces. This

includes a shared kitchen space and a lounge area.

Of the 112 housing units, 99 will be two-bedroom apartments. This was not suitable for most families, according to Keegan.

“I can’t see any family moving into this – a one-bed or a two-bed situation… It’ll be alright for a family of five who are on HAPs [Housing Assistance Payment] or some crap like that,” he said.

Youth and Not Here Not Anywhere and there were speakers from all parties involved.

“The way we have to tackle this problem is at source, by stopping the fossil fuels at drill head, the oil pipe, at the coalmine,” said Green Party leader Eamon Ryan who allowed Private Members Time to be used on the Climate Emergency Measures bill for the second time.

The bill aims to amend the Petroleum and Mineral Oils Development Act 1960 by banning fossil fuels and for no new licenses to be given for the exploration of fossil fuels.

“We’re up against people who are very determined to keep this change from happening,” Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett said addressing the crowd at the protest.

It would follow in the footsteps of countries such as Costa Rica, France, and New Zealand who have put a block on fossil fuel exploration in their coun-

tries.

There was a boost in the fossil fuel industry exploration in Ireland late last year when Exxon Mobil, the US multinational oil corporation, took a 50 per cent stake in an Irish exploration that was due to be held this year.

The bill has also faced backlash outside of the Dáil in Ireland with a survey done by PwC, the multinational professional services network, saying a move to ban the issuing of fuel exploration licences in Ireland would pose “enormous threats” to Ireland’s energy supply and could have “devastating economic consequences”.

After the Private Members Meeting, the division was due to reconvene on March 27th in which the motion passed yet again meaning it will move on to select committee stage, leaving Ireland on its way to becoming the fifth country in the world to pass such a bill.

Credit: Mypub.ie

A spokesperson for the housing development explained how they were “build-to-rent” residential units. This describes accommodation that is never intended to be sold, but rather only rented out.

Adding to the list of issues, Montague also brought up flooding. “I’ve been a councillor for 15 years representing that area and it consistently floods,” he said.

However, the environmental report of the site states the water drainage network will be designed with climate change in mind, “with an allowance for a 10 per cent increase in rainfall intensities”.

The Swiss Cottage Bar and Restaurant would be demolished to make room for this proposed housing. It’s currently made up of a café, two retail stores and a takeaway.

An application was logged for its demolition on January 2nd of this year.

The housing project’s spokesperson informed the committee that all relevant government departments had been notified.

NUIG seek online opinion for their five year plan

PBP among protesters against oil and gas drilling Aoife Horan Contributor @thecollegeview

PEOPLE Before Profit (PBP) and five other groups hosted the Pass the Climate Emergency Measures Bill Protest outside Leinster House before it returned to the Dáil last Tuesday.

The Climate Emergency Measures Bill aims to ban oil and gas drilling in Ireland and was passed in Private Members Time over a year ago but has been blocked at Committee Stage after a vote sat divided with six for the bill and six against.

“The bill that I brought to the Dáil over a year ago, the Climate Emergency Measures Bill to keep fossil fuels in the ground is being thwarted and held in a limbo here in the joint committee,” said PBP TD Bríd Smith.

The protest was held by PBP, Climate Action Ireland, Young friends of the Earth, the Green Party, Labour

Countries across the world have begun to take climate change more seriously after the UN report released on the subject late last year.

Credit: Aoife Horan

The university identified five key values to focus on after consulttions with staff and students

Judy Williams Contributor @thecollegeview THE National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway sought the public’s opinion to help shape the future of the university, in an online discussion last Thursday.

The discussion, called ‘Imagine NUI Galway’, is intended to inform the university’s strategy for the next five years. Students, staff, alumni and the public were able to have their say by logging in and sharing their ideas in the day-long conversation.

President of NUI Galway, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, said: “NUI Galway is your university and we’re keen that you also have a stake and a voice in its future.”

The university welcomed comments from people who don’t currently have contact with them, in an effort to hear new ideas and perspectives.

After consultation with staff and students, the university identified five key values to focus on – to be distinctive, respectful, accessible, expert and sustainable. The online discussion allowed participants to share ideas on how it should advance in these areas.

NUI was established in 1845 in Galway city and has a strong reputation for teaching and research. It hopes that feedback from the study will help to shape its strategy for the future.

DCU undertook a similar exercise in

Credit: Flickr

March 2017 with a public online brainstorming session called DCU Fuse. The innovative study asked the university’s 17,000 students, 1,200 staff and 80,000 graduates, along with key stakeholders and members of the public to go online and share their views on the future direction of DCU. DCU President Professor Brian MacCraith, said at the time: “This online brainstorming event will enable us to capture the views, ideas and aspirations of all our community and to extract these to inform and enhance the university’s new strategy to 2022 and beyond. The wide-ranging conversations will cover the broad role of the university and its contribution to society.”

The result of this research was the DCU Strategic Plan 2017 – 2022, which was launched in September 2017 by the Minister for Education & Skills, Richard Bruton TD. The strategy, called Talent, Discovery & Transformation, set out the university’s vision for the next five years focusing on six areas - creativity, talent, discovery, sustainability, technology and society.

The aim of the strategy was to create a 21st Century Digital Campus, marrying creativity to its strong tradition in technology and innovation and driving major research, whilst providing a unique student experience at an environmentally and financially sustainable university.

News

7

And that’s what you missed on Glee Ellen Fitzpatrick News Editor @elinfizpitryk

DCU’S Glee society took centre stage at the Helix last week for their first ever sold out concert.

The group performed various wellknown hits and medleys to a sold-out crowd of approximately 1,300 people.

“I think the three words that struck my mind were talent, energy, and enthusiasm but talent being number one.

I was hugely impressed yet again that in the midst of all the work students do during the day they can produce such a wonderful show this evening. I was just blown away again,” President of DCU

Brian MacCraith said at the event.

MacCraith said that he aims to attend all DCU events like this in order to show support for all DCU clubs and societies, but particularly enjoys Glee.

“I hugely enjoyed myself, the time flew. I thought it was fantastic, I come as many years as I can to this and to all major events, but Glee, in particular, has been a part of DCU.” “I recognised about half the songs but all of them were really enjoyable anyway. The arrangements were really interesting as well, they weren’t just standard, they slowed some down, they mixed some songs together, I thought it was so cleverly done, done in such a professional way as well,” MacCraith

The group performed various well-known hits and medleys to a sold-out crowd of approximately 1,300 people.

added.

This was DCU Glee’s first concert of this magnitude and they are aiming to continue this annual event for years to come.

“DCU Glee is so special because of how small and close the cast are every year, everyone works hard putting in hours of rehearsals from October up until our show in March,” said Glee

Credit: Aoife O’Brien

member Roisin Phelan.

“Being a part of Glee this year has been incredible, this is my second year being a part of it and I honestly couldn’t imagine my college experience without it now.”

The show lasted almost two hours and it was packed full of songs that had the room up on their feet.

The cast performed a range of songs

from Broadway musicals to a Westlife tribute, earning them a standing ovation.

“It takes a lot of dedication and hard work and sometimes it can be stressful but in the end, it’s all worth it.

Having the opportunity to put on a show in the Helix is so incredible and we as a cast are so grateful to have the opportunity to do so,” Phelan added.

Cáit Caden News Editor @ AreYou_Caden_Me

Namara, who ran for Education faculty rep in this years Students’ Union elections, MC’d the event. Various groups and societies were brought on stage to complete challenges throughout the evening.

Those who lost were rewarded with a dessert to the face.

Game soc usually have their events on a Wednesday night and were contacted by DCU Volunteer to bring down games for the charity fundraiser.

DCU Volunteer and the civic society Enactus were also involved with GiveBack.ie in recent weeks which was a Google initiative to help tackle homelessness through using technology.

It is not currently known how much money was raised at the Games night for ICHH as DCU Volunteer “have yet to visit ICHH’s office whereby we will calculate the donations with a member of their management in conjunction with fundraising regulations,” said DCU Volunteer Coordinator Ruth Lynam.

Lynam said they will know how much was raised by Thursday this week.

Although this event was a collaborative one, there have been several other successful fundraising events held by civic societies throughout the year.

These include the DCU SVP sleep-out, RAG Rumble by the Raising and Giving Society and the 24 Hour Broadcast

by Media Production Society (MPS).

Societies sing their hearts out All fun and games for DCU civic for charity at DCeUrovision societies

Chair of Film Soc Neil Reilly rapped the Dundalk classic, T.P.M’s “All The Boys on the Dole”.

Aoibhín Bryant Arts Editor @aoibhinbryant_ DCU Eurovision society’s DCeUrovision event raised €272 in aid of the Musical Youth Foundation (MYF) on March 19th.

The event involved candidates from different DCU societies vocally battling it out on stage at the Venue in the U. All proceeds went to the charity, MYF, which aims to provide musical education to all children throughout the island of Ireland. The charity was founded in 2009 as part of the Dublin City Soul Festival project.

“The Musical Youth Foundation is delighted to have been chosen by the DCU Eurovision Society as the beneficiary of their recent fundraising event,” said founder and CEO of the charity

Chris Maher. “The MYF is working to provide life-changing music education programmes to children that otherwise wouldn’t get the opportunity to benefit from all that music education delivers in and out of the classroom.”

Chair of DCU Eurovision society Alex Rice was delighted with how the event played out.

“I have to say we are extremely happy with the event! We have been working very hard to organise it due to it being our first large scale event and to say the least we have been blown away by people’s generosity in regards to both donations and time (especially the societies that took part). We look forward to growing this event and as a society in the future.”

The event was originally run by the Music Society but it had not been put on in recent years. Following the success of this year’s show, DCU Eurovision Society hopes to revive it as

Credit: Aoibhín Bryant

an annual event during the academic calendar.

There was a variety of acts which were not only limited to singing but lip syncing as well as a trad performance.

Members of the audience were encouraged to go up on stage and belt a favourite tune of theirs, as the night drew to a close.

Many DCU societies participated in the event. DCU Rag performed a lipsync of ABBA’s Eurovision hit ‘Waterloo’. DCU Sober Soc put on a half-drag show, singing both Bradley Cooper’s and Lady GaGa’s parts of “Shallow” from Academy Award-winning, A Star Is Born. Chair of Film Soc Neil Reilly rapped the Dundalk classic, T.P.M’s “All The Boys on the Dole”.

A raffle was also held where ticket holders were in the chance of winning an assortment of prices, such as a €250 guitar and a Baileys hamper worth €70.

GAME Soc teamed up with DCU Volunteer and other civic societies in the university to host a game night aimed at raising funds for the Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH).

Headstarts, Mental Health soc, DCU Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) soc and Raising and Giving (Soc) were some of the civic societies that joined the Students’ Union and DCU Volunteer in participating in the event for the advocacy group (ICHH).

“The highlight of the event was probably when we lost the very first event on the stage and Antonio got a cream pie to the face which he took like a champ,” said DCU Game soc member Sean Hammond.

This is the second time an event like this has taken place in DCU. The first was ‘Bros of Tralee’ which was organised last year by the SU, DCU Volunteer and the civic societies on campus. The event was in aid of the Irish Cancer Society and was a parody on the Rose of Tralee competition.

This year’s charitable event saw students from varying societies partake in Twister, Mario Kart, Jenga along with other games while donating to various collection buckets for ICHH on the 27th of March in the U building’s Venue.

Donal Corrigan, who is on the Society Life Committee, and Emily Mc-

8

New block of student housing up against opposition

News

Irish Studies Centre under development in Shanghai University Niamh Quinlan Contributor @thecollegeview

Five blocks are due to be demolished on Parnell Street.

Ellen Fitzpatrick News Editor @elinfizpitryk PLANS for a new block of student housing in Dublin’s city centre has been put under the microscope due to the opposition of the demolishing of an old bakery.

Five blocks are due to be demolished on Parnell Street, which are expected to be built up to eight stories high to facilitate student accommodation.

The proposed accommodation would allow for up to 257 more bedrooms for students in Dublin. It will be located directly across from 491 beds in the Kavanagh Court student scheme.

The building of this new accommodation facility is now causing opposition as the historic Dublin bakery, St Peter’s Bakery, would be partially de-

molished.

Housing complexes of over 100 houses or more than 200 student rooms apply for planning directly to the board and skipping over the local authority, according to the Strategic Housing Development system.

“The entire site is protected, one could argue that the industrial bakery buildings are protected and that the Edwardian office building is within the curtilage of same, rather than the other way around,” said Ray McAdam, a Fine Gael councillor.

All surrounding buildings of the bakery are set to be demolished other than the bakery itself, which has been protected for conservation.

It is said that buildings and architecture such as these should be only demolished under “exceptional circumstances.”

UCD failed world record attempt for most ice cream made in 24 hours Tadgh McNally Contributor @thecollegeview

UNIVERSITY City Dublin attempted to set a Guinness World Record after making over 26,000 portions of handrolled ice cream in 24 hours.

The attempt began at 10am on Wednesday, March 27th, with nine people staffing all the stations around the clock, until 10am the following morning. The team fell short of setting the record as they missed out on the quota of 40,000 ice cream rolls set by Guinness. In the end, their final figure landed at 26,891 rolls.

UCD Students’ Union and Arctic Stone Ice Cream set up the event, which took place inside the crowded UCD student centre. A line stretched

out the door and around the corner, with students queueing for up to an hour just to get some free ice cream.

UCDSU President Barry Murphy explained that the original idea was to have an ice cream fair, but this evolved into the World Record attempt. “We [the SU] as a team thought about how we could make it more interesting,” said Murphy.

Murphy said that the original goal set

by Guinness World Records was much higher than the 40,000. “They originally wanted 150,000, but we had to tone it down a small bit,” said Murphy.

The event was set up to raise money for both the Peter McVerry Trust and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC). DRCC told The College View it was grateful to UCDSU for the fundraising efforts.

“We need more resources than we

Credit:Myhome.ie

According to the conservation architect, the buildings behind the bakery are not of any “particular importance” and “their replacement is not of particular conservation concern.”

There has also been concerns raised among Dublin City Councillors as to the height of the new student complexes, as they believe they would dominate and overlook the current apartments that exist there.

Mannix Flynn, an Independent councillor, stated that it was an “appalling plan.”

“This is absolute vandalism and destruction of a unique part of the city and a unique heritage site,” he said.

St. Peter’s Bakery designed by Charles Herbert Ashworth and built by CJ Crampton circa 1906. It was running for over 100 years before moving to Parnell Street and closing in 1972.

A new Irish Studies Centre in Shanghai University in conjunction with University College Cork is under development, the Minister for Education and Skills has announced.

Minister Joe McHugh TD stressed the significance of the centre in his announcement on March 20th during his visit to China. “It demonstrates the great interest in and awareness of Irish culture and heritage in China, and the growing demand for Chinese students to experience world-class teaching in this area,” he said.

The new centre will offer Irish Studies pathways for a diploma for students already attending the university. Visiting UCC academics will also be able to attend lectures on Irish Culture in the new centre.

It is being developed by the UCC’s Confucius Institute and their International Office.

Shanghai University chose UCC out of 16 other possible third level institutes to partner with worldwide, because of its highly rated excellence in food science, business and the arts.

UCC was also one of the Irish third level institutions present at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Ireland and China last December. The memorandum will see the two sides working together over the next three years to improve higher educa-

tion in the two countries, especially in the field of cross-border education.

The centre also further deepens the already present connections between the two institutes. Since 2005, UCC has been growing its relationship with Shanghai University. The relationship was helped along by the twinning of the two cities in that same year. Student exchanges between the universities are currently underway and have been since 2011, with six students from Shanghai University attending UCC every year.

Shanghai University is one of the leading research universities in all of China. It already plays a part in the international academic field with its Sino-European School of Technology, first set up in 2006.

The Minister also said how the development of the centre greatly aides the Government’s Global Ireland Framework, an initiative first brought about by the Taoiseach in June 2018.

The aim of the Framework is to double Ireland’s global footprint by 2015.

“Institutes like this are a crucial part of this concept,” said Minister McHugh, “building cultural understanding and friendship among peoples and among nations.”

The Minister has been visiting China since March 16 as part of the government’s St. Patrick’s Day programme of visits. His tour will last for several days and will include visits to educational Institutes around South China and Hong Kong that have links to Ireland.

The team fell short of setting the record as they missed out on the quota of 40,000 ice cream rolls set by Guinness.

have. That’s why the money that the SU will raise is really precious to us,” said the DRCC. “It means that we can do more for those who’ve been abused and harmed and we can continue to speak out against all sexual violence.”

The Peter McVerry Trust also expressed their appreciation: “Not only

are they raising vital funds, but this event will also increase awareness on campus of our work.”

The type of ice cream being made for the event was “stir-fried ice cream”, which originated as a Thai street food.

It has slowly grown in popularity over the past few years and Arctic Stone was

Credit: Tadgh McNally

the first company to bring it to Ireland.

Along with the free ice cream, students could enjoy themselves by demoing games in the temporary VR section. The centre also hosted a Game of Thrones marathon through the night, with every episode from season seven being showed.

Science and Health

9

Government promises to more than double renewables by 2030 Richard Herlihy Contributor @thecollegeview RICHARD Bruton has claimed that his government will raise electricity generated from renewable sources to 70 per cent by 2030.

His comments follow news that the all-party Climate Action Committee is set to include the target among its recommendations in a report dropping this week, which the government had already signalled it would adopt. The pledge is an increase over an existing target of 55 per cent for 2030.

Bruton, Minister for Communications and Climate Action, told reporters of the announcement in Wexford on Monday last week, adding: “There’s no point in switching to electric vehicles unless you have a clean and renewable electricity network.”

The pledge comes as Ireland is set to miss its existing 2020 carbon reduction targets. Last November, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar admitted Ireland is “nowhere near close” to its EU commitments, with an expected reduction

Although the Irish government is beginning to make changes in its attitude towards climate change, the country is still one of the worst in Europe for emissions and continues to allow the exploration of oil of the country’s coast.

of just 1 per cent falling far short of a 20 per cent pledged reduction on 2005 levels. Renewable sources currently make up 30 per cent of the Republic of Ireland’s energy mix.

“We’ll have to strengthen our grid, of course,” added Bruton. “It will mean that we will have to look beyond onshore wind and we will have to prepare now for a significant offshore wind ca-

Psychosis linked with use of cannabis, study finds

Credit: Sonja Tutty

pacity in our system.”

On Sunday, Leo Varadkar said that an increase in carbon taxes was also “on the table” for next year’s budget.

However, he added that there was “ab-

Study shows rising levels of psychiatric issues in Irish teenagers Marianne Foody Contributor @thecollegeview

Researchers have found a link with cannabis and psychosis in various studies, however elements of cannabis are believed to be beneficial by researchers. Especially when it comes to pain inducing illnesses.

Orla Dwyer Opinions Editor @orladwyer_ THE results of a study linking potent forms of cannabis to an increased chance of developing psychosis is unsurprising, according to DCU SSDP and an addiction counsellor.

The study found that taking any form of cannabis daily tripled the chances of developing psychosis. Using highly potent cannabis that contained high levels of THC, the main psychoactive part of cannabis, increased the risk five-fold.

Chairperson of the DCU Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) Declan Moore said the society was not surprised by the outcome of the study.

“We don’t think it will impact the progress of the legislation for cannabis regulation and decriminalisation both for medicinal and recreational use in Ireland,” said Moore.

“People who engage in use of cannabis for either medicinal or recreational use should be provided with the supports and services they need and be educated on the risks of their use,” he continued.

The study was carried out by scientists in England, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Brazil. The link with psychosis was found to be highest in London and Amsterdam, likely due to the common availability of high-potency cannabis.

The lead researcher of the study from London Dr Marta Di Forti said the findings were consistent with previous studies showing that cannabis with high THC content can have harmful effects on mental health.

Psychosis is a mental disorder where thoughts and emotions are impaired causing lost contact with reality. Addiction counsellor Marie Byrne said she has seen a lot of similar studies and has witnessed firsthand the link

Credit: Alison Clair

between potent cannabis and mental health issues.

“The effects of the drug have damaged the view of cannabis more than these studies… A lot of people underestimate the effects of cannabis,” said Byrne.

“If you’re talking about reducing harm of any drugs, we can’t say that there is a safe way of using it.

“For young people trying to get off cannabis, they find it difficult to find a social place to go where there are no drugs.”

Researchers examined the drug use of 901 patients experiencing their first psychotic episode between 2010 and 2015 along with over 1,200 healthy individuals.

The study found that in London, cannabis with a 14 per cent THC content makes up 94 per cent of the drug sold on the street. In France and Spain, cannabis with THC of less than 10 per cent was still commonly used.

solutely no chance” of a four-fold increase.

Carbon is currently taxed at €20 per tonne of CO2, equivalent to approximately 5.3 cents per litre of diesel. An increase to €30 per tonne mooted for last year’s budget was scrapped due to fears over Brexit impacts.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) warned last year that a rate of €150-200 reflects the true cost of warming and that at least €300 may be required to avoid EU fines if the government fails to introduce other carbon reduction policies.

Last year, Ireland ranked 48th out of 56 countries in the Climate Change Performance Index - indicating that Ireland is the worst-performing country in the EU for carbon reduction efforts.

While EU countries averaged 60.65 on the index, Ireland achieved a score of just 40.84.

In the same year, Ireland passed the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill, becoming the first country in the world to commit to ending investments in oil, gas, and coal from its sovereign wealth fund.

A recent study on hospital emergencies in Irish teenagers (aged 14-15) has shown that psychiatric issues, intentional overdoses, deliberate self-harm and intoxication are highly common in this age group.

The study was conducted on emergency department patients in the University Hospital of Limerick by several Pediatricians, who concluded: “This high frequency of presentations will have a significant impact on paediatricians in the coming years. Our results highlight the need for a multidimensional team input for care of these patients, with input from a wide number of both medical and surgical specialities.’’

A total of 1,363 patients aged 14-15 were included in the emergency-room based study – trauma/injury was shown to be the number one reason for admittance.

The report also showed that psychiatric issues were the fifth most common presentation in the emergency room - this manifested in presentations such as deliberate self-harm, intoxication, suicidal ideation and intentional overdose.

It maintained that presentations of this nature arose “highly frequently’’ and are usually seen in adult populations – 39 cases of intentional overdose/intoxication, 18 cases of deliberate self-harm, 11 cases of suicidal ideation, 10 cases of mood disorder and two cases of acute psychosis.

The report firstly discussed recent NSPCC research which highlights the damaging effects of social media on

children aged 11-16; this age group are most negatively affected via bullying, trolling anxiety and depression.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), depression is the third leading cause of illness and disease among adolescents.

The authors of this report maintain that psychiatric presentations are rising nationally in all age groups and not just in this cohort of patients.

However, this rising level of demand has not been met with an increase in the number of psychiatrists and support systems nationwide.

As of last September, there were almost 2,700 young people and adolescents on waiting lists for mental health appointments and some were waiting over 12 months.

A Europe wide study conducted in 2014 revealed that Ireland has an ‘’exceptionally high’’ rate of suicide among young men and women and also claimed that Ireland “lacks a national strategy on prevention’’.

The figures for Ireland are in line with global trends as shown in the recent WHO report on adolescent mental health.

Suicide is the leading cause of death among adolescents (10–19 years old) in low- and middle-income countries and the second leading cause in high-income countries in the European Region.

In 2015, there were over 4,000 deaths from suicide among 10–19-year olds in the Region, primarily among boys.

The authors of this research have called for more supports to be put in place across Ireland as a whole and claimed this research will have a significant impact on paediatricians in the future.

Science and Health

10

Advocacy groups seek inquiry into history of pregnant women taking epilepsy drug

Doctors are not getting paid for overtime hours

Catherine Gallagher Deputy News Editor @Cather_i_ne

Rachel Halpin Production Editor @RachelHalpin_

THE side effects to unborn babies as a result of mothers taking a prescribed drug to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder has been labelled as a preventable tragedy by CEO for Epilepsy Ireland.

A HSE analysis investigated the potential impact between 1975 and 2015 has. It found the drug Valproate, marketed in Ireland as Epilim could be linked to over 1,200 children born with neurodevelopmental delay and up to 340 with physical defects.

Epilim is a drug licenced in Ireland for the treatment of epilepsy and bipolar disorder. It has been authorised in Ireland since 1983 although it was prescribed from the 1970s. Children exposed to the drug in the womb are at an approximate 11 per cent risk of malformations at birth. Up to 40 per cent of pregnancies where Epilim is prescribed can result in children experiencing a neurodevelopmental delay.

“The very early product data of it would have been sent out to all the prescribers. It would have mentioned in tests on animals that it could have these effects. Historically, the specialists would have been very much aware of it,” said Peter Murphy, CEO of Epilepsy Ireland.

“We would have been aware of a number of sporadic cases, a small

HOSPITAL doctors in Ireland are not being paid enough for the long hours of work and overtime that they do.

This underpayment contributes to the high number of young doctors that are emigrating in growing numbers to work abroad, according to a doctors’ leader.

These young doctors are leaving because they have become demoralised and frustrated with their jobs and they feel that their efforts are not being rewarded or appreciated in the Irish hospital system, according to chairman of the non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHD) committee of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Paddy Hillery, as reported by the Independent.ie.

“Doctors in training see the reality of working in the healthcare system in Ireland,” he said.

More frequently, they are coming to the conclusion that the sacrifices they will have to make to stay in Ireland, personally, professionally and in their own health, are not worth the benefits,” he added.

While around half of medical students in Ireland and NCHD trainees consider working abroad most want ultimately to stay in Ireland for their careers, according to research findings in doctor migration in a report by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2018.

An early 2018 survey in the report showed that of 784 NCHD trainees 42 per cent planned to leave Ireland and return, 41 per cent were remaining in the country and 14 per cent intended to leave And not return.

In a survey of 483 Irish Final Med Students taken in 2017, 54 per cent planned to leave and return, 37 per cent planned to remain and 9 per cent planned to leave Ireland and not return.

Of the 36 countries who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Ireland produces the highest number of medical graduates per 100,000 population. Of those graduates more than half of plan to practise medicine outside of Ireland.

“NCHD contracts are continually breached and there are significant problems in getting paid for all hours worked, and this has undermined the relationship and view that NCHDs have of their employer and the health services,” Dr. Hillery said to independent.ie.

“Our doctors are increasingly leaving Ireland’s shores and taking up positions in other English-speaking countries, where they are valued and treated with respect. And this will continue until the Irish Government values doctors,” he added.

Up to ten per cent of doctors reported severe to extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stress, according to The National Study of Wellbeing of Hospital Doctors in Ireland.

Children exposed to the drug in the womb are at an approximate 11 per cent risk of malformations at birth.

number of people who would have had children affected,” said Murphy, “Since 2010, it became clear that something needs to be done here and the European Medicines Agency took it on to review its prescribing.”

FACS Forum Ireland, an umbrella organisation representing advocacy groups raising awareness of the risks of Valproate are seeking for an independent inquiry.

“We want to know how this was allowed to happen, was there a regulato-

ry failure in Ireland or Europe? Families are looking for answers to all of this. They are right in saying that this was a preventable tragedy.

“Historically, lots of women who were on this drug weren’t informed by their medical team about the risks involved,” Murphy added.

In 2014, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) introduced measures to strengthen the warnings and restrictions on the use of Valproate in women and girls. They stated at the time that

Credit: Max Pixel

the drug should not be prescribed in women/girls unless other treatments were effective. However, the EMA have placed further restrictions on two occasions since 2014.

According to the HSE’s Rapid Assessment report, it suggests that there currently 43 – 95 children under the age of 16 who will have experienced a major congenital malformation due to exposure to Valproate.

Push for organ donation information to be accessible to healthcare workers David Kelly Sub-Editor @daveidontknow ORGAN donor information carried on driver licenses is inaccessible to healthcare professionals due to government inaction, according to Fianna Fail.

Senator Mark Daly has called on the Minister for Transport Shane Ross, to allow healthcare professionals to have access to driver license information for organ donations. He said that without this information, potential donors are slipping through the cracks.

“There are around 2.6 million driving licence holders in Ireland at the moment. Since 2013, driving licence applicants have been asked if they would be willing to be an organ donor. However, doctors and medical professionals are currently not allowed to access this information. This means that those involved in the facilitation of organ transplants often miss out on potential donors,” said Daly.

Minister Ross maintains that this issue is not as important as matters such as Brexit and needs to be examined in detail before a decision is made. Mr Daly refutes this claim and asserts that a simple Ministerial Order is needed to rectify the problem.

Mr Ross has said he wants to hear the views of the HSE on the potential for doctors being able to look up a potential list of organ donors. He also said that under current EU regulations, they need the permission of the applicant to share organ donor information.

“The Government allows driving licence details to be shared with other State bodies such as the Courts Service, the Road Safety Authority and the Health and Safety Authority” said Daly.

“This is an important yet simple change, and I feel the Government’s laissez-faire approach to this issue is not acceptable,” said Fianna Fáil’s transport spokesman Robert Troy.

Over 270 transplants were carried

Under EU regulations, organ donor information is restricted to healthcare professionals.

out last year as a result of both deceased and live organ donors, with 81 of those organs donated by families.

There are currently around 600 people waiting for a life-saving transplant.

Respective of 30,000 road accidents a year, organ donation is quite rare with an average of 80 multi-organ donations annually. A person is three times more likely to need a transplant than be an organ donor.

Proposed legislation to be reviewed

Credit: Alison Clair

in this quarter, the Human Tissue Bill, will include an “opt-out” approach to organ donation, whereby a deceased person would automatically consent to the donation of their major organs.

Last Saturday marked the beginning of Organ Donor Awareness Week, which runs until April 6th. Minister for Health, Simon Harris, has launched the week while the Irish Kidney Association is organising the event.

Business and Tech

11

DCU Water Institute launch three year strategic plan Aoife O’Brien Contributor @thecollegeview DCU Water Institute (WI) launched a three-year strategic plan which aims to devise solutions for water conservation monitoring, treatment and usage on Friday, March 22nd.

The plan was launched as part of the Institute’s activities to mark World Water Day at DCU and prioritises harnessing the potential of technology, bio-design, data analytics and industry collaboration for tackling the management of water resources.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, water scarcity affects more than 40 per cent of people around the world. The theme for World Water Day 2019 was ‘Leaving no one behind’ and is an adaption of the central promise of the 2030 Sustainable Development goals that everyone must benefit.

The plan identified a number of key projects that align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring universal access to safe and affordable drinking water for

all by 2030.

DCU WI which was officially recognised as a research facility by the university in 2015 as part of the DCU’s Shaping the Future Campaign is conducting research in the areas of energy, water and health, marine and sustainable agriculture. Through international research collaborations, it will focus on bio-design for water management and future emerging technologies to find solutions for flooding scarcity and pollution.

The Institute plans to introduce a graduate programme in Water Innovation and Stewardship as well as establish a network of water research leaders by 2020. Director of the DCU WI Prof Fiona Regan said: “this new plan highlights the massive potential for us to advance our understanding and management of water through the utilisation of advanced technologies.”

Speaking to Dublin.ie, Prof Regan said: “We are working on agricultural projects such as reducing nutrients to waterways. We are looking at how best to provide safe water in Africa. We are looking at how to recover ammonia from the water that can be used as fertiliser.”

Credit:

However, Prof Regan says that getting people to recognise the value of water is still a major problem. She says that they are not aware of the cost implications of providing safe drinking

water, or treating it when it comes from a toilet.

President of DCU, Professor Brian MacCraith welcomed the launch of the DCU WI Strategic Plan, stating that

it “lays out an ambitious road-map to make DCU a significant international player in an area of critical global importance.”

Go-Ahead make final takeovers of Dublin Bus routes Eoin Harte Deputy Lifestyle Editor @EoinHarte98 GO-AHEAD Ireland have taken over three Dublin Bus routes in the final stage of the takeovers.

The 18, 76 and 76a bus routes will also now be operated by Go-Ahead.

Buses taken over by Go Ahead Ireland will keep the same fares and ticketing as Dublin Bus, with users still able to use Leap Cards on the new buses.

Dublin Bus Rambler as well as Annual and Monthly TaxSaver tickets will also continue to be valid on these routes. Daily and weekly bus fare capping will also still apply.

The buses under Go-Ahead’s operation will have a new look, with much more blue being featured in their design.

A total of 21 bus routes will be operated by Go-Ahead, on behalf of Transport for Ireland (TFI).

TFI has said passengers on these routes will “see immediate improvements in frequency and service levels.”

The National Transport Authority (NTA) has said it has approved a programme of service improvements and modifications on Dublin Bus routes in the coming weeks.

“This final phase of changes being introduced this coming weekend are part of an overall process of increasing frequency and improving services on

TFI has said passengers on these routes will “see immediate improvements in frequency and service levels.”

about 50 bus routes in Dublin, operated under the Transport for Ireland brand,” said NTA Chief Executive Anne Graham.

“This is part of the single biggest programme of service improvements that the NTA has ever approved and it is an indication of the level of commitment we have to making the

bus service better for more passengers across the network in Dublin,” Graham said.

The Go-Ahead group is a provider of passenger transport in the UK, Ireland, Singapore and Germany, with over one billion journeys made on its bus and trains services each year.

It was founded in 1987 in North East

Credit: DublinBusStuff

England and has its headquarter in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Real time information for routes operated by Go-Ahead are currently available on the TFI Journey Planner app. The app is freely available on both Apple and Android devices.

The 155 route run by Dublin Bus has also come into effect which travels

from Ballymun to Bray.

The 155 will start at IKEA in Ballymun and end at Bray rail station and will go through DCU, Phibsborough, the city centre, Donnybrook, University College Dublin, Stillorgan Road, Cabinteely, Shankill.

Members of the DCU Students’ Union have reacted positively to the new 155 bus route as they believe that it will make a number of students’ daily commutes easier.

Class Representative Council Chair Helen Wade welcomed the new route.

“I got a leaflet through the door saying there’s going to be this new bus route. So I was like ‘oh savage, trips to Bray from DCU no bother’ so I think it’s really positive.

“It’s a straight run so if you want to hop from DCU to UCD or Bray now you can,” she said.

SU Clubs Officer Thomas Dorian was happy to hear that the 155 is now in operation.

“It’s news to me and I think it is positive because students will be able to get to places easier. I suppose once it is affordable for students and that they won’t start rising prices.

“I think it’ll be a lot better to connect students from this campus to other parts of Dublin. It’ll hopefully cut commuter times for some students that would have to go get different buses,” added Dorian.

Business and Tech

12

Google fined €1.49 billion over ads Donal Corrigan Video Editor @thecollegeview THE EU antitrust regulator has fined

Google €1.49 billion for advertising violations over the last 10 years.

The tech giant received the fine for limiting the possibility of websites to display search advertisements from competitors of Google.

“Google is fined €1.49bn for illegal practices in search advertising brokering to cement its dominant market position. They shouldn’t do that - it denied consumers choice, innovative products and fair prices,” said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Twitter.

This is the third fine that Google has received from the European Union as part of an ongoing investigation into the search engine. The Competition Commission had sent the tech company a list of objections to Googles conduct in terms of advertising three years ago.

They highlighted the fact that Google had been in breach of their prohibit on the abuse of a dominant position since 2006. Google forced customers of its AdSense business

The $1.41 bn fines make up less than 10% of Google’s average annual profit

into contracts so that they could not accept advertising from rival search engines.

The EU have previously hit the company with two other fines amounting to €8.2 billion. The US company’s previous fines came froits’s misconduct with ‘Google Shopping’ and separately with the smartphone operating system, Android and it’s abuse on its position in the market.

This fine marks a new chapter for the EU and its relationship with big tech companies after many years of

criticism for not prosecuting these large companies and their breach of regulations. The US was previously leading the way for standing up to big tech companies with congressional hearings on privacy breaches.

Yet, Margrethe Vestager has since become the face of EU prosecution against big tech firms. The ex Denmark minister has previously worked with the EU in landing Apple with a €14.3 billion fine after illegal tax benefits from the Irish government.

The latest fine is the lowest one in

Credit: Flickr

the series of sanctions from the EU. Google work with them after unveiling that they have made changes to their products in response to the EU Commision concerns and plan on making further changes.

These fines only make up less than 10 per cent of Google’s average annual profit after reporting an intake of $100 billion in 2017. The fines will be paid into the general EU budget and while this is not set aside for any particular expense, it will reduce member states contributions for the next year.

Facebook users may have passwords viewed by workers Orla Dwyer Opinions Editor @orladwyer_ HUNDREDS of millions of Facebook users have potentially had their passwords viewed by workers within the organisation.

Facebook confirmed that many passwords were visible within their internal data storage systems on March 21st. This will potentially affect hundreds of millions of Facebook and Instagram users.

“We estimate that we will notify hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users,” said Pedro Canahuati, Vice President for Engineering, Security and Privacy in a blog post.

The discovery was allegedly made during a routine security review in January. The issue has since been fixed and those whose passwords were discovered will be notified. Facebook said the passwords were not visible to anybody outside of the company.

“These passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Face-

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users were put at risk of having their accounts hacked

book and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them,” said Canahuati in the blog post.

The Data Protection Commission confirmed to The College View that it is aware of this issue and are awaiting further information.

“Facebook have been in contact and have informed us of this issue.

We are currently seeking further information,” said a spokesperson for the DPC. The Facebook login systems are supposed to be designed to mask passwords and make them unread-

able.

Facebook experienced security breaches in the past including the Cambridge Analytica scandal last April in which data of up to 87 million people was shared without their knowledge.

As of December 2018, there were 1.52 billion daily active users on Facebook around the globe. The Daily Mail reported on March 27th that 44 per cent of Facebook users still have a negative opinion of the platform after the Cambridge Analytica data breach last year.

Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art and Design student Mark Elliott

Credit: Orla Dwyer

said they don’t believe the password breach will stop people from using Facebook.

“It’s kind of hard because all this stuff comes out and makes you think you should stop using it but it has become such an integral part of everyone’s daily lives,” they said.

“It’s not going to stop people from using Facebook. People not using Facebook will not start now but for people who have it, it is such a convenience and integral part of life.

“Just because of a password breach, we are not all going to jump ship to Linkedin,” said Elliott.

News in Brief

First Ireland Skills Live session promotes apprenticeships

123 people competed in the first Ireland Skills Live at the RDS Simmonscourt on the 21-23rd of March, alongside potential employers and hundreds of visitors.

The competition hopes to promote apprenticeships, traineeships and college courses that offer on-the-job training and other skills.

Judges from educational institutes and industries examined competitors undertaking an 18 hours skills test.

Categories ranged from carpentry, beauty treatments and aircraft maintenance. High-tech sectors were also represented.

The winner of the HVM Skills Apprentice was Daniel Curtin of Athlone IT, who works for Bus Eireann and Megan Yates of TU Dublin was the victor of Ireland Skills Live Logistics Apprentice.

They will go onto represent Ireland at the World Skills competition in Russia this August.

“It feels great to be representing the country out there, I was delighted to get to the national stage of the competition so getting the opportunity to go to Russia is a big bonus,” told Daniel Curtin The College View.

Plans for 400 build-to-rent units in Dublin

FITZWILLIAM Real Estate Capital (FREC) is looking to introduce 400 new build-to-rent units to the rental market, a source familiar to the company’s plans has said.

Build-to-rent is a model where properties are purposefully built for longterm renters while being managed by professional landlords. This model has become increasingly popular in Dublin.

The company, owned by solicitor and developer Noel Smyth, intend to build on four separate sites across Dublin City. Two sites in Sandyford - one in Glasnevin and a site in Dun Laoghaire - are already owned by the group.

It is understood that forward funding will be FREC’s approach to any development, meaning they will seek to fully book out a site before beginning any building of the properties.

A source has said that current conditions within the renting market mean it is better for FREC to deal with institutional investors like large organisations and anyone else who pool funds into purchasing assets.

The rise in popularity of build-torent homes comes down to a change in the planning guidelines that means that buildings can be higher up and with fewer windows as well.

Smyth’s FREC have secured planning permission for their site on Murphystown Road in Sandyford, but are still seeking planning permission to build on their other three sites in Dublin.

13

opinion

Let’s talk about sex baby

Irish people need to be better informed about their sexual health to reduce the rise of STIs across the country, writes Orla Dwyer.

S

Orla Dwyer Opinions Editor @orladwyer_

ex education is a crucial topic and one that has been sorely neglected in Ireland. For years, schools have been focusing on sweat glands, wet dreams and body hair and ignoring the basics of sexual health education. It’s time to bring the topic back to the table as STIs are on the rise across Ireland.

Much like mental health and other difficult topics to discuss, Ireland has brushed sex education under the rug for the most part.

Contraception was illegal in Ireland until 1980, but that was nearly 40 years ago. Times have changed and we need to keep up.

Aside from the issue of LGBT+ representation and other forms of contraception being ignored by many sex ed classes, even the most fundamental issues are not known to many Irish people.

A 2017 survey by the Irish Family Planning Association showed that more than a third of Irish adults aged 18 to 34 have used the withdrawal method as contraception. One in ten of the couples surveyed use this pull out method instead of condoms or other

Sex education in Ireland is behind the times in many respects.

contraceptives.

This method is only effective when used properly, which is very difficult.

According to Planned Parenthood, roughly one in five people who use this method get pregnant. Alongside that, this method doesn’t protect against STIs. CSO statistics show that teenage pregnancy numbers have halved over the past decade. We should be far more concerned with the ever-rising number of STIs in Ireland.

A 2017 HSE report showed that there were 483 diagnosed cases of HIV in 2017, a diagnosis rate above the EU average.

Instead of rates declining as access and information online about contraceptives improves, our STI rates have gotten worse since 2013.

A Health Protection Surveillance Centre report on 20 March 2019 showed that there were 344 more cases of Chlamydia diagnosed the week prior compared to this time last year.

Credit: Deirdre Kelly

Not only that, but cases of Gonorrhoea, Genital Herpes and HIV have also increased substantially from this time last year.

This is a worrying trend. We should not only be implementing sex education about STIs in schools, but clearly adults are not as informed as they might think.

A HPSC 2017 annual report showed that the largest age group contracting STIs in Ireland is 20-24 year olds.

However, those aged 25-39 are still

contracting hundreds of STIs every year. Although they have fewer STIs as a group, they are not exempt and should still be given training and reminders for how to have safe and protected sex.

Everybody could do with a sex education refresher every now and then.

Some women on the pill may still believe that they don’t need protective contraceptives with partners who are unsure about their STI status because they know they are protected against pregnancy.

Obviously, an unwanted pregnancy is a bigger situation to deal with than an STI, but everyone should be protected against both. Get STI checked every few months and always ask a new partner if they have been tested recently and since their last partner. If not, be extra cautious to use protective measures. It’s that simple.

Even if you practice safe and protected sex, some STIs can still be contracted through skin-to-skin contact.

Get tested at St James’s Hospital free, walk-in STI clinic or the DCU clinic which costs between €15 and €40 for an STI screening.

April is STD awareness month and it’s time for Irish people to take control of their sexual wellbeing and stop letting STIs spread.

Has hazing culture in Ireland reached new heights?

Clara Kelly questions whether hazing culture in Irish college societies has been taken too far in recent months.

I

Clara Kelly Deputy Opinions Editor @clarabkelly

n the past six months alone, societies from both Dublin City University and Trinity College, two of Ireland’s largest Universities, have encountered hazing scandals.

In October, DCU sparked a nationwide conversation about hazing culture in Irish universities when its Accounting and Finance Society was suspended from social activity for a semester due to misconduct.

At their Annual General Meeting, students running for positions were told to pop balloons between their hips and the meeting led to public stripping.

While this event drew attention to the problem, it was by no means the first time hazing had occurred in an Irish college.

Most students have heard whisperings of certain societies in various colleges getting up to no good. There are plenty of these societies throughout Ireland with reputations, renowned for partying or questionable behaviour, but far too often these things go overlooked.

Most recently the issue was yet again forced into the public sphere when it was alleged that Trinity’s all-male, invite only, The Knights of the Campanile society came under fire.

In March, one of Trinity’s student newspapers The University Times reported on an initiation ceremony for this society in which hazing was once again a major component.

Before this incident, the Trinity Dublin University Boat Club was also exposed by The University Times for

practises of hazing late last year. The usual Trinity tradition of going for Christmas Commons (usually involving a three-course meal in the Dining Hall) held a very different meaning for new members or ‘novices’ of the boat club.

It was reported by The University Times that in the last decade, new members of the club have often drank excessively, stripped to their underwear and been whipped with bamboo sticks to be initiated. But is any of this

Society hazing has hit the headlines in Ireland in recent months.

really surprising?

In America, where fraternities are common in colleges, so too is a massive culture of hazing in sports and other areas. It is estimated that more than half of US college students are involved in some sort of campus hazing during their time in college.

Since 1970, there has been at least one hazing related death on a college campus every year, with some years having more, according to the National Study of Student Hazing. 95 per cent

Credit: Howstuffworks.com

of students who were aware they were being hazed didn’t report it.

82 per cent of these hazing deaths involved alcohol which hardly seems surprising as alcohol consumption is also a pattern we have seen combined with hazing incidents in Ireland. In the US, the first hazing cases involving sexual abuse allegedly occurred in 1983 and incidents involving sexual intimidation, nudity or stimulation have allegedly been on the rise since 1995.

But is this culture rising in Ireland too? In 2017, there were articles detailing worries of possible hazing such as The Irish Times reporting on the Trinity fraternity Zeta Psi. In the article, Lauck Walton the Executive Director of the Zeta Psi International Headquarters in the US said that hazing is banned in Zeta Psi and when chapters fall into hazing, they are closed. But he also noted that over the years they had several incidences of hazing. “Hazing is insidious; it seems to creep back,” he said in The Irish Times article.

So given the recent alleged cases in Irish colleges, it is strident to remember that hazing is not a new concept nor has it gone away over time. If hazing really is as insidious as it can be, will it keep creeping back in to our universities?

14

Opinion

DCUSU should stay linked to the USI

“

Leaving the USI would be a terrible decision for the student body of DCU, writes Emily Sheahan.

D

Emily Sheahan News Editor @emilyaine_s

CU Students’ Union should remain affiliated with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) as to leave would have a negative impact on the DCU student body. The USI represents over 374,000 students across the country and can achieve things that smaller, individual unions may struggle to.

DCUSU President Vito Moloney Burke previously argued that the USI did not step up to the plate in campaigns they were running such as Shanowen Shakedown and Save Our Shepherd.

During Shanowen Shakedown, the USI not only participated in a large scale social media campaign, but also brought the issue to the attention of the housing department and Minister.

In December 2016, 94 per cent of DCU students who voted in a referendum about remaining in the USI voted to stay affiliated. Leading up to this referendum, the USI said they campaigned on DCU campuses, speaking to “thousands of students who knew about the work done by USI”.

“The results show that USI and the work of the national student movement is being recognised by students,” said former USI President Annie Hoey at

USI are an organisation of great intentions

the time.

During an emergency Class Representative Council, Moloney Burke stated that a “large portion of students were unaware of what USI does”. He was unable to back this up when questioned where he got such information and admitted that no survey had been carried out.

USI organise a number of events and campaigns that benefit student bodies across the country and DCUSU should not risk losing out on involvement in these.

One of these is Pink Training, a weekend-long event that focuses on activism and issues within the LGBTA community.

This year, 21 delegates from DCU went to the weekend in Galway. Should DCU disaffiliate, LGBTA students risk losing this valued resource.

Since discussions began, two societies have posted open letters expressing their discontent.

DCUSU should remain affiliated with the USI for the good of students.

USI were especially involved with the Marriage Equality and Repeal campaigns. Moloney Burke said that the DCU student body is active enough to sustain these kind of campaigns on its own.

The Student Unions of UCD and UL - who are not affiliated with USI - carried out very successful campaigns in these matters. However, that does mean DCU should have to.

In the words of Moloney Burke, USI are an organisation of great intentions.

I am of the belief that USI has the power to act on these intentions and has

done so successfully in the past. They could do more. But just because they could do more doesn’t mean that what they’re already doing isn’t worth sticking around for.

DCUSU should not risk putting such extra weight on their - and their successors’- shoulders when there’s already a representative body in place to support them.

The sudden push by Moloney Burke and his team to advocate for disaffiliation from the USI seems like more of an effort to leave behind a legacy for themselves than actually act in favour

Credit: Alison Clair.

of the student body.

While the emergency CRC mandated the Executive team to take a neutral stance on affiliation, Moloney Burke made it clear that he pushed for the referendum as he believed disaffiliation was the right decision.

In reality, the DCUSU constitution schedules a referendum on USI affiliation every three years. There is simply no need to call one a number of months earlier than scheduled when the student body has expressed no strong interest in disaffiliation.

Do all trolls have sadistic tendencies?

David Kelly examines the uncertain link between internet trolling and sadism.

I

David Kelly Sub-Editor @daveidontknow

nternet trolls represent some of the worst parts of humanity. The internet has democratised the publication of speech, allowing almost everyone to have a voice.

It has also allowed individuals to use their voice to hurt people while hiding behind a screen.

Trolls garner more spotlight than is deserved, normally for the wrong reasons. The recent ‘Captain Marvel’ film was targeted by trolls because the lead identifies as a feminist. They attempted to sabotage the film’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes before it was released, resulting in the site banning pre-emptive scores.

This example of trolling was particularly egregious as the film had not even been released yet. It highlighted the de-

A link can be found between sadism and internet trolls.

structive, malicious aspect of the troll agenda. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, so long as somebody is hurt in the process.

Pnina Fichman and Madelyn R. Sanfilippo define trolling as intentionally disruptive behaviour that occurs on the internet and involves users with no existing relationship in real life. This definition leaves some room for nuance, as it considers the grades of trolling that occur.

Credit: Taralesher.com

An article in the latest issue of the Journal of Personality (Psychology) examines the links between internet trolling and sadism. A sadist is someone who derives pleasure from inflicting pain on others. As trolling often involves virtual cruelty without the risk of social repercussions, it is a perfect pastime for sadists.

Trolls and sadists derive pleasure from the pain of others. However, they engage in a psychological rationalisation process to justify this pleasure to themselves. When shown pictures of individuals in pain, trolls will downplay that pain to rationalise their sadistic tendencies.

Often, a person’s self-image defends itself against threats to that self-image by employing mechanisms such as rationalisation. A particularly reprehensible example is the trolling of Leslie Jones, a black actress that starred in ‘Ghostbusters’. By rationalising a racist attack on Jones by downplaying the potential harm, trolls minimise the denigration of their own self-image.

Another example is when the ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ actor, Will Poulter, was trolled off social media after receiving insults targeting his appearance. If individuals view a person in the public interest, like Poulter, as detached from themselves, the cruelty

directed towards him becomes more enticing.

Another finding from the research is the link between positive emotion and trolling. The sadistic associations of trolling are not explained by other, broader forms of antisociality, such as aggression and psychopathy scores.

Rather, the sadistic aspect of trolling is statistically explained by the release of positive emotion.

It’s interesting to consider some anecdotal evidence that corresponds to this empirical data. Seven News, an Australian news service, completed a report that confronted trolls in real life.

The individuals confronted rationalised their behaviour by citing the disconnect between their online persona and their real-life personality.

One troll targeting a 15-year-old Australia’s Got Talent contestant and was confronted by a TV host. They followed the exact pattern laid out in the empirical data. When confronted with the real-life impact of his words, he rationalised his behaviour by claiming his internet persona is disconnected from his actual personality. This apparently justified his sadistic attack.

Not all trolls are sadists, but there is clear link between the two. If we are to develop solutions, it’s important to develop a clear diagnosis.

15

gaeilge

An Ghaeilge nua-aimseartha ar líne

Míníonn Clíona Hughes an bhealach a bhfuil ár dteanga ag athrú sa lá atá inniu ann.

Tá an Ghaeilge ag athrú leis an domhain

T

Clíona Hughes Eagarthóir na Gaeilge @hughescliona

aithfidh an Ghaeilge fás agus forbairt a dhéanamh ionas go mbeidh sí in ann maireachtáil i ré a ghluasann ar aghaidh chomh tapa agus sin an fáth gur ndeachaigh BLOC, Molscéal agus #FADUDA ar an bhfód.

Tá níos mó daoine ag brath ar na fóin pócaí i gcomhair ábhair nuachta agus eolas a fháil faoi céad atá ag tarlú sa domhain mór atá againn. Tá a fhios ag gach foilseachán nuachta gur gá dóibh dul i dtreo na meáin sóisialta chun maireachtáil i ré na dteicneolaíochta atá faoi lánseoil faoi láthair.

Bíonn daoine ag brath ag gnáthdhaoine chun eolas a bhaint amach maidir le céard atá sa nuacht agus céard a bhfuil daoine ag caint faoi. Is í sin an fáth go mbaineann déagóirí úsáid as Instagram chomh minic sin.

Tá daoine óga gafa leis na meáin sóisialta sa lá atá inniu ann agus faraoir, caithfear dul sa treo seo chun a bheith ábharach sa ré ina bhfuilimid.

De réir roinnt taighde, tá na meáin sóisialta níos andúile ná toitiní agus caithfidh na comhlachtaí agus na foilseacháin Gaeilge an andúil seo a shásamh ionas go mbeidh suim ag lucht na Gaeilge iontu go fóill. Tá go

Credit: Rachel Halpin

leor dul chun cinn ó thaobh na teanga de ar an idirlíon le blianta beaga anuas agus tá go leor comhlachtaí agus eagraíochta ag cloí leis an deis seo, ag díriú ar dhaoine óga a bhfuil Gaeilge acu agus ag cruthú ábhair dóibh inár dteanga dúchais ar bhealach a bhainfidh siad go leor sult as.

Ag tús 2017, sheol BBC Gaeilge #FADUDA, chun ardán sa ré dhigiteach a thabhairt do Ghaeilgóirí idir 18 agus 30 ionas go mbeidís in ann cumarsáid a dhéanamh ar líne tríd an ábhar iontais nua - vlaganna. Tá #FADUDA ag dul ó neart go neart ar an cainéal Youtube BBC Northern Ireland agus tá sé cuartha ar fáil ag Paper Owl Films.

Tá réimse leathan daoine a chruthaíonn vlaganna acu le Gaelgóirí fud fad an domhain ina measc a thugann comhairle don taisteal agus a leithéid. Tá an t-inneachar acu a bhfuil suim ag daoine óga ann ar nós smideadh, taisteal bia agus sláinte go hiomlán trí mheán na Gaeilge.

Tá an cuspóir céanna ag BLOC atá bunaithe ag TG4 seachas BBC agus is é atá i gceist ná croílár úr Gaeilge atá ar fáil ar Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube agus Twitch - na suíomhanna atá mór le rá na laethanta seo. Tá BLOC ag iarraidh áit a thabhairt do dhaoine níos sine ná 18 le Gaeilge mar aon le #FADUDA. Tá réimse leathan ábhar ar fáil ag BLOC agus tá rud ann do gach duine toisc go bhfuil ceol,

ghearrfhíseáin faisnéise, míreanna grinn agus go leor, leor eile.

Tá an saol go léir ar líne anois leis an méid airgead atá bainteach le saol an vlagadóir sa lá atá inniu ann, tá gnáthdaoine agus comhlachtaí araon ag dul i dtreo an vlagáil. Tá luach mór tráchtála ag luchtanna féachana óga na laethanta seo agus mar sin, is féidir le daoine óga airgead suntasach a thuilleadh óna bheith ag vlagáil, mar sin, níl aon iontas go bhfuil muintir na Gaeilge ag iarraidh dul i dtreo an vlagáil. Is modh éasca é a bheith ag vlagáil chun ábhair rialta agus ábhartha a cur amach go tapa agus níl mórán oibre i gceist leo toisc go bhfuil ‘iriseoireacht mhóibíleach’ agus a leithéid ag dul ó neart go neart, le roinnt vlogadóirí ar Youtube le níos mó ná 10,000,000 síntúiseóirí. Roinneann 92% de lucht féachana mhóibíleach na físeáin a fhéachann siad ar a gcuid cúntais sóisialta agus mar sin - is féidir leis an Ghaeilge fás agus forbairt a dhéanamh go nua aimseartha le hábhair ar líne do dhaoine óga. Tá an ceart ag BBC agus TG4 dul i dtreo an vlagáil agus na ghearrfhíseáin faisnéise toisc go bhfuil a gcuid sprioc lucht féachana gafa le hábhair a bhfuil gné ‘gan stró’ bainteach leo - agus is é sin atá i gceist le #FADUDA agus BLOC go díreach.

Is féidir le duine ar bith le Gaeilge a bheith páirteach i #FADUDA chomh maith le BLOC agus airgead

a thuilleadh uathu agus tá tuilleadh eolas ar fáil ar Facebook #FADUDA agus BLOC. Is modh iontach é do dhaoine óga airgead a thuilleadh agus iad i mbun a gcuid Gaeilge a fheabhsú agus a fhorbairt ar bhealach spraoiúil agus taitneamhach. Beocht teanga í a labhairt, mar a deirtear agus is bealach nua-aimseartha í seo chun an Ghaeilge a spreagadh.

Rud éigean eile a bhfuil iontach nua-aimseartha ná an Pop Up Gaeltacht. Scaiptear an scéal faoin ócáid míosúil seo tríd na meáin sóisialta agus tá rath ollmhór faighte ag an ócáid sa lá atá inniu ann. Tá pobail Gaeilge fairsing ar líne, go háirithe ar Facebook agus Twitter agus tá leathanaigh ar nós ‘Gaeilge más fearr, Béarla más Gá’ ag spreagadh daoine a gcuid Gaeilge a úsáid lena chairde ar Facebook, nó cairde nua a dhéanamh a bhfuil Gaeilge acu tríd an leathanach Facebook, nach iontach nua-aimseartha é an smaoineamh sin?

Tá an domhain ag dul go dtreo an phodcraoltaí le déanaí agus is iontach an deis í seo ardán a thabhairt don Ghaeilge a bhfuil úr agus nua-aimseartha. Is podcraoldh iontach é Motherfocloir, ina ndéantear plé ar focail agus frásaí i nGaeilge agus an teanga go ginearálta. Bíonn daoine difriúla ar an bpodcraoladh ag uaireanta difriúla agus baineann siad go leor súp as díospóireacht a dhéanamh idir a chéile faoin dteanga agus frásaí aisteacha

éagsúla. Is féidir le duine ar bith podcraoladh a chruthú agus is deis iontach é seo bearna a líonadh ó thaobh pobal na Gaeilge de toisc nach bhfuil a lán podcraoltaí ann inár dteanga.

Is é atá i gceist le Molscéal na aip ar líne gur féidir le daoine níos sine ábhar iriseoireachta trí Ghaeilge a aimsiú ar líne. Tá ábhar ann do dhaoine a theastaíonn uathu ábhair trí Ghaeilge a fheiceáil nach bhfuil feicthe acu cheana ar na meáin Bhéarla. Feictear ábhair agus físeanna ar nós an saol nua-aimseartha ar na hOileáin Árainn agus féilte na Gaeilge, rud nach mbíonn luaite sna meáin Bhéarla.

Is féidir linn íomhá aa Gaeilge a hathrú le obair chrua agus dílis ionas go bhfuil daoine nach bhfuil Gaeilge líofa acu an méid taitneamh céanna a bhaint as an nGaeilge a bhaineann muid mar Ghaeilgeoirí.

“

Is féidir linn íomhá na Gaeilge a hathrú

16

Laethanta saoire mar mhac léinn

Gaeilge

Insíonn John Morley dúinn conas íoc as laethanta saoire breá agus tú fós i do mhac léinn

Suíomh Ryanair

T

Credit: Aoibhin Bryant

John Morley Deputy Sports Editor @JohnMorleysport

á an Samhradh ag teacht go tapaigh agus an cheist atá ag chuile mhac léinn ná conas gur féidir linn íoc as laethanta saoire muna bhfuil mórán airgid againn?

I ndáiríre is gá dúinn post páirt aimseartha a bheith againn. Nuair a oibrítear i rith an deireadh seachtaine bítear in ann níos mó ná céad is caoga euro a bhailiú seachtain i ndiadh seachtain.

Tá a fhios ag gach mac máthair go bhfuil a lán rudaí a mbíonn ar mhac léinn a íoc as tríd na seachtaine ach má atá tú in ann píosa beag airgid a shábháil agus a lán airgead a fháil ag tús an tSamhraidh, beidh tú in ann saoire a cheannach.

Is léir le níos mó ná fiche bliain anuas go bhfuil sé níos deise saoire thar lear a íoc as ná saoire in Éirinn ar thaobh an phraghas.

Tá an aimsir, an chaighdeán saoil agus an phraghas ar óstáin i bhfad níos

fear agus níos compórdach thar learn á in Éirinn.

Bíonn sé go hiontach dul go dtí tíortha eile cosúil le Spáinn mar mhac léinn Éireannaigh mar nach bhfuil aon grian in Éirinn ar chur ar bith. Nuair atá tú as Maigh Eó, déan dearmad ar an ngrian.

Is cinnte go bhfuil an aimsir I bhfad níos teo ná in Éirinn agus tá sé sin go han mhaith do do shláinte. Cabhraíonn an te leat má atá aon galar agat agus nach iontach an rud é sin.

Ní bhíonn eitleán chuig an Spáinn ró-dhona ar thaobh an airgid má gcuireann tú d’ainm isteach cúpla mí níos luaithe ná an spriocdháta.

Mar is eol da chách, bheadh an phraghas chun cairr a tabhairt amach seafóideach i gcomparáid nuair a thógann tú peitreal agus cíos isteach.

Má atá an phraghas do chúpla lae in óstáin agus an eitleán bheadh sé an thábhachtach an méid airgid a bheith agat chun na pointe agus an-chraic a bheith agat.

Dún do shúile, cruthaigh fís álainn, le muir, grian agus trá. Ní bheadh aon áit níos fearr ná Deisceart na Spáinne

Cúpla cider, an ghrian ag scoilteadh na gcloch agus buachaillí agus cailíní ag pleidhcíocht le chéile.

Tá a lán eachtraí sa Spáinn do thurasóirí I rith an lae agus I rith na hoíche. Tá na teacht tábhairne chomh deas agus gnóthach ó maidin go hoíche agus i ndiadh sin tá seans agat damhsa a dhéanamh go dtí an maidin.

An rud is fearr do na hÉireannaigh atá ag dul chun na Spáinne ná labhraíonn beagnach chuile dhuine sa chathair béarla. Beidh tú in anna aon cheist a rá agus má atá tú ag iarraidh comhrá príobháideach a rá tá an Ghaeilge ann. An teanga oifigiúil na hÉireann.

Ná bígí ag dul chuig bialann daor chuile oíche, faigh borgaire agus sceallóga cúpla oíche chun airgid a shábháil.

Chomh maith le sin b’fhéidir go mbeidh sé níos saoire fós deochanna a cheannach in ionad siopadóireachta ná i teacht tábhairne in aice na farraige.

Cúpla cannaí ar an trá le do chailín, ag dul ag snámh sa fharraige, ag fáil an ghrian ar do dhroim, níl aon rud chomh maith le sin. Agus é sin soar in

aisce.

Beidh tú in ann mar an ainmhí sa dán Géibheann le Caitlín Maude, sa teochrasa.

Ní thaitíonn an eitleán go mór le gach duine, agus mar gheall ar sin b’fhéidir go bhfuil orainn caint faoi conas a cheannaíonn tú as laethanta saoire in Éirinn.

Bhfeul, ar an chéad dul síos, tá sé i bhfad níos cliste BnB a fháil ná óstán.

Bíonn siad an-chostasach i lár an tSamhraidh.

An áit is fearr in Éirinn chun laethanta saoire ceart a fháil I mo thuairimse ná an Chiarraí.

Níl aon áit ar fud an domhain níos gleoite ná Cill Airne. An cheol tradisiúnta, an stair, an suíomh i lár na sléibhte, tá an bhaile seo dochreidte.

Tá na daoine ann chomh chairdiúil agus is Éireannaigh ceart iad. Tá a lán daoine sa Ríocht in an an teanga dúchais a labhairt agus damhsa Éireanach a dhéanamh chomh maith. Áfach, bíonn Cill Airne píosa beag gnóthach. B’fhéidir go mbeidh tú ag iarraidh áit níos ciúine. Má gcloiseann sé sin mar tusa, bh’féidir go mbeidh tú

níos compordaí ag dul go dtí Dún na nGall nó Gaillimh.

Sna áiteanna seo tá an faoin tuath curtha chun cinn. Níl na áiseanna an rud is tábhachtaí.

Tá seans agat do scíth a ligean seachas aon duine ag cur isteach ort.

Tá an saoirse agus an suaimhneas go hálainn ar fad agus ní bhíonn sé costasach teach a chíos amach i gConnemara nó áit mar sin.

Tá seans agat an radharc a fheiceáil nuair atá tú ag dreapadóireacht na sléibhte nó ag siúl faoin tuath. Má atá tú ag iarraidh íoc as cúpla eachtraí bheadh an mharcaíocht nó turas stairiúil go deas, go háirithe i lár an tSamhraidh.

Só, má atá sé ar intinn agat dul ar laethanta saoire thar lear nó in Éirinn beidh ort níos mó ná seacht gcéad euro a bhailiú roimhe sin.

An rud is tábhachtaí chun bhrise soar a cheannach ná a bheith ullmhaithe. Bíonn chuile rud faoin spéir níos saoire nuair a chuireann tú glaoch isteach níos luaithe.

features Risky business: the agenda

17

The third, and final part of ‘Risky business’ explores the fight for change in Irish sex work laws Gabija Gataveckaite Features Editor @gabysayshey

A

Credit: Rachel Halpin

s the sun sets on a frozen Saturday in November, the Cobblestone Pub in Smithfield is bustling.

The front of the bar is packed with relaxed professionals, chatting over pints of lager, relieved to finally see the sight of the weekend. Older men hunch over their pints of Guinness and raise their eyes at the match as icy glasses sit on thin cardboard coasters on the counter in front of them.

Conversation focuses on the rugby, the friend who just got married, the picky boss at work.

But at the back of the pub is a ‘listening lounge’, a venue with a small stage and space for perhaps an odd comedy gig, or in this case, a book launch.

The conversation heard at the listening lounge is worlds apart from the picky boss and the rugby.

“We’re told by society that what we’re doing is disgusting,” Molly Smith tells the tightly packed audience.

“Allies try and engage with sex workers from a liberal perspective and say it should be decriminalised,” Juno Mac adds. “We have to try and branch out analysis, as it’s very hard to understand for those who don’t sell sex.”

Smith and Mac are sex workers, who currently live in the UK. They are in Dublin for the Ireland leg of their ‘Revolting Prostitutes’ book tour, which focuses on the fight for sex worker’s rights.

“We want our work to be recognised as work- focus on the work aspect of sex work and not sex,” adds Kate McGrew, the director of Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI).

McGrew is the loudest voice for sex workers who live in Ireland. She uses the term ‘sex workers’ to include all people who work in the sex industry.

“We have to ensure that our language is inclusive to ensure that people who are sugaring or camming or working in strip clubs know that they’re included in ‘sex workers’,” she explains over cups of coffee and a scone some months later.

The Irish sex worker rights movement’s biggest challenge at the moment is legislation. This brings other barriers - those that actively protest sex worker rights.

“With all due respect, the women that they would have speak on the other side have had really horrible experiences,” McGrew says.

“People don’t realise that we also have women that have gone through those experiences, amongst us who have those same experiences and have come to different conclusions.”

An example of the ‘other side’ that McGrew speaks of is Ruhama, who

works with ‘women affected by prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation’, according to their website.

Campaigners for Ruhama declined to be interviewed for this series.

The group was central in changing Irish prostitution law in 2017, which saw the sale of sex be decriminalised but buying sex being made illegal.

Speaking to The Journal, campaigner Denise Charlton said: “the Irish State is finally telling those sexually exploited through prostitution: ‘You are not to blame. You are not at fault. You are the victim here and we will protect you.’

From today, the law will instead focus on the pimps and traffickers who currently profit to the tune of €250 million from the sex trade.”

SWAI was one of the groups to actively campaign against the law change.

“Anti-sex workers rights activists have never been able to explain to me or anyone how the law that they passed would have prevented or improved their situation, they cannot explain that,” McGrew added.

The organisation has now shifted all of its focus on a review of the new law which criminalised the buying of sex, and a clarification in brothel keeping laws, to allow workers to work together.

“

We want our work to be recognised as work - focus on the work aspect of sex work and not sex Since 2017, it has been illegal to buy sex in Ireland. This means that workers are driven underground and have to hide themselves and their clients in order to make an income.

Irish brothel keeping laws see that workers cannot work together, as they would be seen as proprietors and victims of the prostitution. By hiring a bouncer at the door, the bouncer would be put at risk as they would be seen as profiting off prostitution.

“We’re up against millennia of our industry being criminalised and stigmatised,” says McGrew.

As a review of the new law which

criminalised buying sex will take place in 2020, the group is currently preparing to go into campaign-mode next year.

“We’re gonna do everything we can,” says McGrew.

But it won’t be easy. It is too early to tell whether or not the sex worker rights movement will see students at the forefront, similar to the campaigns for the repeal of the eighth amendment last year.

However, this may also be unlikely.

Brighton University in the UK faced backlash last year when SWOP, the Sex Work Outreach Project, had a stall at their fresher’s fair, handing out condoms and sex work advice. Posts on social media accused the university of glamorising prostitution.

Tomi Ibukun, the SU president, defended the decision: “They were not there to advocate sex work as an option to our new students. It is unfortunate that some people have misinterpreted the attendance of Swop at our freshers’ fair.”

“How can you have a safer drugs display but you can’t have the same about sex work?” rages McGrew.

Changes in law aren’t the only changes that sex workers wish to see.

Their treatment in society remains a taboo, especially by the police.

“People have such bad experiences with gardaí. Gardaí laugh at them, touch them, verbally harass them,” explains McGrew.

In 2015, a brothel raid took place in the Midlands, where two sex workers were arrested and questioned. After returning to their apartment, one of the garda returned and allegedly raped one of the women, which her flatmate claimed she witnessed.

After an investigation was conducted by Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, or GSOC, the garda was fined for ‘breach of discipline’ and a sanction was applied. He claimed that they had ‘consensual’ sex, the Sunday Independent reported.

“Response to this is ‘it was a bad day, a really bad day’,” McGrew says.

As the hour goes on, the listening lounge becomes more packed with listeners- those that ask questions about sex work laws, police and the view of workers in society.

It is very clear that both the speakers and the listeners demand legislative change.

An audience member asks the authors a question about the only part of the book that she says she has read- the title.

“We came up with the pun when we were brainstorming ideas,” explained Mac. “We got the idea from a banner we saw at a pride parade, which read ‘homosexuals are revolting’. You think homosexuals are revolting? You bet we are.”

18

Features

Mistrust, lies and stigma for the addicted in Ireland’s travelling community

For Irish travellers, reaching out for help in the tight grasp of addiction can prove to be a significant challenge

I

Donal Corrigan Deputy Video Editor @thecollegeview

t is no secret that the Irish Travelling community has little supports in place.

One of these crutches is a drug supports system, however, this has been showing signs of ineffectiveness as half of a Traveller focus group for drug misuse said that they at some stage tried a home detox for heroin.

The huge drug problem with Travellers appears to be met with inadequate support services.

One of the issues for Travellers using drug support systems is trust. Confidentiality is very important to Travellers who are accessing rehabilitation.

When this is breached, it has enormous consequences for Travellers and their place in their community. This is due to the massive taboo around drugs for this community and a lot of shame can be cast on Travellers who take drugs. This comes from a lack of understanding behind the cultural reasons, according to the Marie Claire report.

One woman sought out help from support services but lied to her counsellor for the first four months with her. She claims that she did this to test the strength of confidentiality she had with the counsellor. She argued that if anything came back to her friends or family about her, she would be able to

deny it as a lie. Once she was happy that none of these lies were coming back to her community, she was only then ready to begin an honest approach to getting herself cured.

There is a disastrous knock-on effect with the taboo and the mistrust of confidentiality. Travellers will want not want to access rehabilitation close to their communities. Instead, they want help that is located further from their sites in order to prevent anything from getting back to their friends and family.

However, Travellers also find themselves without access to transport, as some live in halting sites which may be in remote locations, as well as some travellers being unable to drive. This leaves many people in this community in a limbo so they don’t seek help at all.

Another pressing issue is that travellers simply don’t know that the support services are in place. Many Travellers affected by this are unaware that there are support services available for them.

This problem can be attributed to a lack of outreach from the government.

According to one report, Travellers feel that drug education is not built for their community, that the system is ‘not based on their values and beliefs’.

Another reason for this lack of knowledge can be put down to the taboo around the subject. If people don’t speak about the problem than they are less likely to speak about the solution.

There is a significant taboo around drugs and Travellers.

This is particularly worrying as a Pavee Point report found that the most common way travellers found about support services was by word of mouth.

The huge taboo around drugs can act as a barrier to the main way of finding out about this.

The amount of people that are suffering from this problem is difficult to gauge. Figures in many reports on travellers and drug misuse are can be skewed, due to mistrust in the support system for Travellers. When Travel-

lers bring themselves into the system, there is a common practice not to identify yourself as a Traveller by filling in forms that you are from the settled community.

There is a belief that you will receive better care if a support worker thinks you are part of the settled community.

As a result, attention in support services can fail to meet the specific needs of their patients because they don’t actually know who they are. Furthermore, policies are falling short of solving the problem because they can’t see their target.

“

There is a belief that you will receive better care if a support worker thinks you are part of the settled community Traveller and Romany advocacy group Pavee Point are not happy with the response from the government.

Only after an 18-year long fight, Traveller representatives are finally allowed onto the board for the national drug strategy. It has been an anti-climatic experience- for example, the board is supposed to meet once every

Credits: Jamie Johnson

month, to establish what progress has been made on their goals, which need to be met by 2020. In the last year and a half, they have only met six times.

Very few of these goals have been met with just nine months left out of the three-year time frame.

Volunteer John Paul of Pavee Point says that there are two solutions that can help this problem. Firstly, more Travellers need to be working within the support services themselves. A major criticism of the support system from Travellers is that it is geared towards majority needs so minorities are left out. If there are more Travellers working in the system itself than there would be more of an understanding towards their acquired needs, he claimed.

Secondly, John Paul stated that more people working in the support services need to be given cultural competency training. This training gives people the opportunity to better understand other cultures thus allowing them to adapt their work to better suit the needs of a certain type of people. Yet, he comments that there are not enough people accessing this training within the support services.

However, this may seem like a small detail to a solution it could have a profound effect on the problem. According to the Pavee Point pathways report on drug support services, “the most commonly reported benefit of engaging in a service was reported to be ‘having a staff member to talk to’ by two-thirds of all service users.”

Cultural competency training may be the solution to solving the many trust issues that members of the Travelling community hold within support services. In turn, this may be key in repairing the drug support services available to Travellers and finally addressing heavily stigmatised drug issues within the community.

Features

Dublin’s neglected cemetery

19

Deansgrange cemetery in South Dublin shows significant signs of neglect

The last 10 years saw our budgets drastically cut

D

Sabrine Donohoe Sub-Editor @DonohoeSabrine

eansgrange cemetery in South Dublin has lacked maintenance for several years, despite an increasing annual budget, according to a Freedom of Information request made to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

The annual budget towards the maintenance of Deansgrange, Shanganagh, and Kilgobbin cemeteries has been increasing since 2012. Excluding staff wages, the budget reached €552,000 this year.

The budget allowance exclusive to Deansgrange cemetery was €1.1 million last year including staff wages, according to staff member at Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Anne Kinsella.

Meanwhile, the public toilets in Deansgrange were closed mid-2018 and have remained closed since.

“In mid-2018 it was decided to close

the toilets located at the back of the workmen’s yard due to the ceilings becoming unsafe,” said Kinsella.

“

many of the graves are quite old and the families of those buried there are no longer alive, or have moved away, and the graves are not being maintained

Credit: Sabrine Donohoe

“The delay in addressing the condition of the public toilets was and is down to money. The last 10 years saw our budgets drastically cut and we have had to prioritise works as our budgets allow. We did install modern toilets at the tea rooms [the ‘Tranquil Tearooms’ near the main entrance of the cemetery] in 2010,” she added.

A total of seven gravediggers are employed by the Council, with one staff member leaving over the past year. The gravediggers work 44 hours per week, not including over-time for incomplete duties.

“Their duties include digging and filling in graves, gardening, grass cutting, hedge trimming, laying chippings on graves, filling up graves that have sunk and any other general maintenance that is required,” said Kinsella.

Areas behind large trees and in between grave plots, however, contain dead plants, weeds, dead Christmas wreaths, rubble, and some rubbish.

Fine Gael Councillor Patricia Stewart, a regular visitor to the cemetery, disagrees with the broadness of its lack

“

Some areas contain dead plants, dead Christmas wreaths, rubble and rubbish.

of maintenance.

“As someone who attends Deansgrange cemetery regularly, I can say that it has actually shown a great deal of improvement over the past few years. There has been a huge amount of clearance of ivy and weeds in many of the areas near the Tranquil Tearooms.

“It is true, however, that there are areas where there is plenty of room for improvement.

The team who look after the cemetery have plans to extend the scope of recent clearances but there isn’t an open purse to do much more than they are at present,” she said.

“The biggest problem that this cemetery has is that many of the graves are quite old and the families of those buried there are no longer alive, or have moved away, and the graves are not being maintained. To fill in a collapsed grave is difficult and very costly.”

Councillor Stewart praised the staff who have cleared weeds and planted daffodils in the public grass areas of the

cemetery in a post on Twitter: “Congratulations to the staff at #DeansgrangeCemetery for the great work they are doing clearing and maintaining the grounds. Beautiful spring displays near the #TranquilTearooms,” she tweeted recently.

Councillor Stewart said that the Council plans to turn Deansgrange cemetery into a “Cemetery-Park” and renovate two of the chapels.

Glasnevin Cemetery is of much larger capacity, with approximately 1.5 million people buried there to date compared to 150,000 people buried at Deansgrange cemetery. The cemetery operates under a Trust which encompasses four other cemeteries: Goldenbridge, Newlands Cross, Dardistown, and Palmerstown.

Yet according to the Grounds Manager of Glasnevin Trust Philip Ryan, the annual budget to maintain Glasnevin cemetery is €80,000.

The Trust gains a surplus from trades in grave sales, burials, florist, and monument works, which is used to run and invest in the organisation.

An equal number of seven groundskeepers are employed at Glasnevin cemetery, who work 49 hours per week excluding overtime. Four to six workers tend to the cemetery at all times. The gravediggers at Glasnevin cemetery maintain the graves that they bury for one year after burial.

“We decide each year on the priority projects and try to fund them the best we can. We do manage to supply the staff with all the machinery, products and personal protective equipment necessary to maintain the cemeteries to a high standard,” said Ryan.

Together with Mount Jerome, the Deansgrange and Glasnevin cemeteries are the largest in Dublin.

Green Party Councillor Ossian Smyth who works in the Deansgrange area and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Cemeteries Manager John McCann were unavailable to comment at the time of publication.

20

Features

A banging headache and a fuzzy memory

Ireland’s binge drinking culture is no secret but it’s the younger people that are hit the hardest.

Irish people aged 18-24 have the highest rates of binge drinking in the EU

Ciara O’Loughlin Deputy Features Editor @Ciara_olo

A

banging headache, a fuzzy memory and the dreaded ‘fear’ are all too common for the average Irish person.

Ireland is a nation who is no stranger for liking to purge on liquor. Binge drinking has become so common in our country, that we don’t realise the effects it could be having on our physical and mental health.

Irish people aged 18-24 have the highest rates of binge drinking in the EU, according to the Central Statistics Office. Also, Irish teenagers have been ranked among the highest binge drinkers in the world, according to a new global study of adolescent health.

The study was published by The Lancet two weeks ago and found that binge drinking was more prevalent among Irish girls than boys. Irish teenage girls

were ranked third in the global table of the worst drinkers behind Denmark and Finland.

According to the World Health Organisation, binge drinking is defined as six or more standard drinks in one session. That is the equivalent of three or more pints of beer or six or more pub measures of spirits.

In an Instagram poll of 77 Irish men and women, all under the age of 26, 88 per cent considered three pints “a quiet night”. 77 per cent of those surveyed didn’t know that three pints, which is six standard units, was binge drinking. After being told this, 75 per cent said that they binge drink at least once a month. When asked if they would consider reducing their alcohol intake with this new knowledge, only 19 per cent said yes.

Pharmacist Shamir Patel explained to The College View that many people binge drink on the regular without realising and that this could be damaging to both their physical and mental health.

“Binge drinking is a dangerous drinking culture, as your body can actually only process one unit of alcohol per hour,” he said.

Marc, aged 42 from Dublin, decided to give up drinking alcohol two years ago in order to focus on fitness and improve both his physical and mental health.

“Ireland does not have a healthy relationship with alcohol. As a nation it seems inbuilt into our psyche that we need alcohol to entertain,

“

My confidence is much higher without alcohol and there just seems to be less anxiety

soothe and give us confidence,” he said.

“What I previously thought was necessary to both enjoy social situations and be confident in those situations is, in fact, a fallacy,” he added.

Marc also explained that ‘the fear’ is a very real and dangerous consequence to binge drinking. “What a lot of people don’t realise is the low level of anxiety that exists with regular sessions or even moderate drinking over a long time scale. My confidence is much higher without alcohol and there just seems to be less anxiety.”

Long term effects of binge drinking, which are often only thought of when it is too late, include damage to organs such as the heart, liver and brain, cancers of the mouth, throat and breasts, psychological issues, a depressed immune system and damage to relationships.

According to Stanton Peele, a psychotherapist specialising in addiction, the single most important determinant

Credit: Alison Clair

of how you drink is the culture, community and people you drink with.

“Drinking is very much socially determined . . . So, the good news for all human beings, Irish included, is that if you choose a positive drinking environment – where people are positive and convivial, and they don’t act out when they drink, and they consume alcohol in a moderate, positive fashion – then it’s likely that such a positive experience is going to be beneficial for you,” he told The Irish Times.

Alex Philbin, a 22-year-old student in UCC, has never tried alcohol.

She claimed that for her, the negative effects of alcohol have always outweighed the positives.

“I don’t feel like I miss out. There is definitely a social pressure to drink.

People are often questioning my decision on nights out or slagging people who don’t drink in my presence. That’s certainly an annoyance, but it has never made me feel like I’m missing out on anything,” she added.

Ireland’s success and struggles in the Special Olympics

While Ireland has made strides in Special Olympics, there’s still a long way to go in terms of visibility and acceptance.

I

Emily Sheahan Online News Editor @emilyaine_s

n 2003, Ireland hosted the largest event in the world that year.

That June, over 80,000 people watched in Croke Park as for the first time the Special Olympics World Games was held outside of the United States.

7,000 athletes with physical or intellectual disabilities gathered in Dublin to compete in what is regarded as the most successful games in Special Olympics history.

At the time, Special Olympics Ireland said: “For two weeks, as a nation, we were enthralled and inspired by the determination, bravery, skill and abilities of the Special Olympics athletes who travelled from 168 countries.”

This year, on March 22nd, the Irish team arrived back from the Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi clad with 86 silver, bronze, and gold medals.

Trinity College Students’ Union President-elect Laura Beston has been involved in Special Olympics Ireland as a coach as well as in support of her

sister who has competed. Beston said the organisation “creates a sense of independence for many athletes”.

She said that while the organisation itself does its best to give the athletes the representation they deserve, they should be getting more airtime, especially from the national broadcaster.

“If athletes who compete in the mainstream Olympics get their event televised then why isn’t an athlete competing in the Special Olympics?” said Beston.

“

the athletes get great representation from the organisation, but should be getting more air time

“A special slot on the news is merely tokenistic and, in my opinion, veers on ableism.”

“Overall, we’re failing and that’s not the fault of the individuals working on the ground,” she said. “It’s systematic and it needs to be tackled at the top to help the actual athletes and those who don’t even get to access sport.”

The Special Olympics also faces very real hurdles on an international level. US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has on March 27th proposed cuts once again to the Special Olympics as it is “not a federal programme” and doesn’t need federal backing when it can raise private contributions.

For the third year in a row, she has called for the elimination of funding to Special Olympic events at school.

While the cuts are unlikely to happen, the move has been criticised for being an appalling attempt to “go after disabled children” by Democrats.

Special Olympics Ireland currently has around 8,870 registered athletes in 14 sports. Beston believes that more athletes should be encouraged to compete in different events.

“From an athletics perspective, I always felt that there were skills that suited different events in mainstream athletics that weren’t being offered to the athletes I was training,” she added.

She said that particularly in rural areas, there is an obvious gap in terms of accessibility of both training and development of sports centres. “Ireland has great strides to make yet to claim that sport is inclusive,” said Beston.

Chief Executive of DCU Sport Ken Robinson said more focus should be put on the Special Olympics and that “sport should be the vehicle for all abilities and levels.”

He said their ‘Sport for All’ policy is a part of their strategy for their “diverse and inclusive customer base”. DCU Sport has committed to the Sport Inclusion Disability Charter established

by Cara, an organisation launched at the start of this year with the aim of increasing sport and physical activity opportunities for people with disabilities in Ireland.

Credit: BBC

Robinson said the recent success of the Irish team was wonderful and it showed that the ‘legacy of 2003’ is carrying through.

Ireland’s history with the Special Olympics has in many ways been strong and vibrant, something for the country to take pride in. The huge welcome that this year’s athletes received in Dublin Airport is evidence of that.

However, like the rest of the world, it has a way to go before it can be said without doubt that people with disabilities are given fair and equal opportunities in sport.

Sport

DCU Storm prepared for potential league decider

21

The Irish Powerchair League will be decided by a play-off should DCU beat Midlands United in April.

Eoin Harte Deputy Lifestyle Editor @EoinHarte98

T

he DCU Storm Powerchair Soccer team will face Midlands United in a pivotal game that could decide the league champions on the 20th of April.

DCU have currently only lost one game this season, while Midlands are top of the league table having won all of their games so far.

If DCU win the game they will be

“if you hit into each

other you’d get knocked about quite a bit.

level on points with Midlands which means the Irish Powerchair League will be decided by a play off final between the top two sides.

Eimear O’Sullivan, Chairperson of the club, spoke to The College View about her team’s crucial upcoming match.

“Midlands are our big rivals. Over the last number of years its been either DCU or Midlands who have won the league.

“That’s the team we dropped three points to last time,” O’Sullivan said.

“It used to be done on goal difference if they were equal on points but then it ended up that teams were winning by too many goals just purposely to get the goal difference so they cut that out so goal difference doesn’t matter,” O’Sullivan explained.

The final round of games will be played in Gormanstown, with only two venues in the country used to host matches.

“There’s a secondary school in Gormanstown that have a hall that we use. There’s two venues, we either go to Gormanstown or UL. They’re the two venues we use so all the clubs travel there the same day so it’s just neutral venues,” O’Sullivan said.

Power soccer is played with a goalkeeper and three outfield players on each team, with each half being 20 minutes long. Each player is in an electric wheelchair that has a bumper on the front which is used to ‘kick’ the ball.

Chairs are allowed to collide front bumper to front bumper but any impact

Credit: John Owens Photography

DCU Storm PFC

with the side or back of a chair results in a foul.

“It’s not like wheelchair rugby because the chairs are quite heavy so if you hit into each other you’d get knocked about quite a bit.”

There is normally a classification system around what players can compete in power football but as the

Irish league are attempting to grow the number of players the system is not enforced.

“If you want to play power chair at an international level you have to get a classification. So you have to have limited mobility in either your arms, your torso or your neck.

“If people have very strong upper

bodies they can play wheelchair rugby or wheelchair basketball and powerchair is for people who can’t play those sports,” O’Sullivan explained.

All the players on the team currently have their own chairs for power football but DCU do have a spare chair that they will provide for players interested in trying out the sport.

DCU lose All-Ireland Junior Championship final to IT Sligo After beating both IT Sligo and IT Tralee in the group stage, DCU then lost the All-Ireland final to IT Sligo.

T

John Morley Deputy Sports Editor @johnmorleysport

he DCU Junior footballers lost the Junior championship final in bizarre fashion last Wednesday in NUIG

grounds.

The culminating two rounds were played out in a league format which saw the semi-finals scrapped as the Dundalk team dropped out of the competition with its players electing to play for their Fresher side over their junior team.

DCU Dóchas Éireann, IT Sligo and IT Tralee all played off against each other in thirty-minute games with DCU topping the group before losing to IT Sligo in the final.

“We had to hang around for forty minutes while Sligo and Tralee played each other,” said the DCU Captain.

DCU Junior Captain Kevin McKeon had no complaints about their loss to IT Sligo as the Sligo college had the momentum and ruthlessness of champions in the final match.

“We played IT Sligo again in the final and they beat us by a few points,” said McKeon.

“We nearly didn’t have any momentum going into the final as opposed to Sligo who had just been

DCU’s Junior Football side at the All Ireland Junior Football blitz.

playing,” he added.

The structure of the tournament stopped any hope of a DCU resurgence in the final with the thirty-minute game time proving too short for McKeon’s men to stage a comeback.

“Sligo got two sloppy goals in the final and then went defensive,” he said.

“Because they were only fifteenminute halves it was difficult for us to claw that back,” “We missed a lot of chances

ourselves and made stupid decisions, so it was disappointing in that sense when we had already beaten them, to lose to them in the final,” he added.

McKeon was sceptical of the casual way the Junior Higher Education Championship was dealt with following Dundalk’s departure from the tournament.

“We were meant to be playing IT Sligo [in a semi-final] and then IT Tralee were meant to play Dundalk,

Credit: NUIGGAA1 / Twitter

the winners would play each other in a final and there would be a third-place playoff,” he said.

“I think they should’ve just played a semi-final and a final, I don’t know if they were just trying to run it off or what the story was,” “They definitely would’ve been much better off just playing a semi-final and a final, just for player welfare,” he added.

McKeon could not imagine the

Sigerson tournament being dealt with in such disregard to player well-being.

“It definitely wouldn’t happen in the Sigerson. The way it would happen for Sigerson is that they would have a weekend and play a semi that night and the final the following day,” he said.

“They scrapped that as well because of issues with player welfare, but especially for an All-Ireland Junior competition, its kind of ridiculous that they run it off in one day,” “We wouldn’t be complaining if we had won but the actual format could take a bit of revising,” he added.

McKeon was not disheartened by the loss as he and his teammates were delighted to get the chance to represent DCU at the top table of the Junior Championship.

“It’s a great chance for lads to actually play with their college. At the start of the year there was sixty lads who wanted to play,” he said.

“The way that David Neary and the management did it was at the start of the year they played a different team for the League,” “So many lads wanted to play, and it was good to give all of them a chance to play for DCU,” he added.

McKeon was proud of his teammates and looked back on their season with fondness.

“If you do get to a final its never considered a bad thing you’ve still made it there,” he said.

Sport

22

Men’s Volleyball finish runners-up to Athlone IT DCU fought back from losing their first set in the semi final 25-9 to UCD to book a place in the final against Athlone.

Ian Brennan

D

Podcast Editor

@ IPJBrennan97

CU Men’s Volleyball lost out in the final of the League Championships to Athlone IT after an impressive showing.

DCU reached the final after producing an astounding comeback against favourites UCD in the semi-final after knocking out Royal College of Surgeons in the quarter finals.

The men’s team had been knocked out at the quarter final stage for the last two years so for coach Benny O’Regan, even making it to the final was a massive achievement.

“Overall it’s better than what was initially expected especially from intervarsity’s in November, where they more or less came bottom two,” he told The College View “We topped the group anyway, but it was a very weak group with Tallaght (IT) and Dundalk (IT), there was another team that pulled out.”

Topping the group gave confidence to the team, according to O’Regan as they prepared for the match against RCSI. “We had a home match initially with Surgeons. When we arrived they were definitely feeling a bit more of a buzz because they’d won a couple of games against Tallaght and Dundalk that kind of gave them a bit more confidence in terms of winning.”

DCU went into the semis as underdogs, with O’Regan himself admitting they were by far the fourth best team left as they headed into what was an interesting clash personally for the coach.

DCU Men’s Volleyball Team.

“They’re semi-final was against UCD, who were the favourites. I coach both. I couldn’t coach either so I gave

“

Overall, it’s better than what was initially expected

Credit: DCU Volleyball/Facebook

them their line-ups and may the best team win.

“They (DCU) got hammered in the first set, 25-9. Then somewhere in the second set they started getting a bit more competitive and a bit more into the game and managed to get over the line somehow 25-22.

“The momentum was with them as they went into the third set and they had an early three point lead. Eventually we got over the line, bit by bit, 1512. That was probably the best feeling for all these male students who have been with me over the last two and half years.”

When it came to the final, Athlone

were just too strong, and O’Regan admits that DCU played their final, effectively, in that semi with UCD. For the women’s team, it was a question of bad luck that saw them get knocked out in the quarter finals against NUI Galway.

“They played their best performance in their heaviest defeat. Think of it like Ireland in football against the World Champions, there’s a huge divide in standards.

“When you have someone playing at the top of their capacity and doing everything they can to win a point against a very, very experienced team, which was Galway who ended up winning the League, I’m doing stats for all these

girls and they’re not making any mistakes.

“They’re fighting for every ball, they’re standing up to Galway saying, ‘if you want to win, you’ll have to win it on your own terms,’ and that’s what Galway had to do.”

Looking ahead the next event for DCU Volleyball are the Beach Volleyball Championships next month, with O’Regan looking to have four men’s teams and one women’s team competing in Bettystown.

DCU Men are defending champions and for O’Regan, he believes that they can repeat the same feat again this year.

Ní Iceadha wins gold ahead of Irish Student Trampoline Open Niamh Ní Iceadha won gold for DCU at a recent colours competition in Trinity.

T

Luke Redmond Contributor @thecollegeview

here was success for DCU Trampolining as Niamh Ní Iceadha took home gold in Open Advanced and Higher Synchro at a recent competition in Trinity.

Ní Iceadha claimed gold with just days to go until the Irish Student Trampoline Open, the marquee student Trampolining event.

Ní Iceadha gave some insight into the competition and how the competition works.

“We do routines and that’s what you get medals for. We do ten moves in a row.

I was at advanced ladies and I won gold for that and I also won gold for higher synchro which is two people working together kind of like synchronized swimming,” Ní Iceadha said.

In a post on Facebook, DCU Gymnastics and Trampolining club congratulated Ní Iceadha on her gold medal glory.

“Huge thank you to @dutrampoline (Trinity Trampoline Club) for hosting such a great Colours competition! Congrats to everyone who took part - espe-

cially to our DCUers. Special shoutout to Niamh Ní Iceadha who got Gold in Open Advanced and Higher Synchro.

Also thanks to anyone who took photos/vids for us and made us feel very welcome as guests. Roll on ISTO Irish Student Trampoline Open. ”The success comes off the back of a big push by the women’s side of DCU Trampolining this year who in November competed in an intervarsity tournament hosted by University College Cork.

Ní Iceadha said she was looking forward to the ISTO but was adamant DCU and herself needed to manage expectations and that competition at the event would be fierce.

“We are all really looking forward to ISTO (Irish Student Trampoline Open) there’s a good crew of us going of mixed ability from novice to advanced.”

“It is a much bigger competition (than the colour competition where Ní Iceadha won gold) so there’s not as much chance of winning but we also have the Dublin Open coming up which we won last year.”

“Almost everyone went and everyone who did picked up gold so we have high expectations for that,” Ní Iceadha told The College View.

She then went on to discuss her role in the society and the passion for really pushing the competitions to fellow trampoline enthusiasts.

“I’m competitions officer so obviously I’m really enthusiastic about pushing the trampolining competitions within DCU. ”Ní Iceadha also talked about integration with societies elsewhere to help connect with other “Tramps” as she coined it.

“Obviously we want to spread and integrate with other societies and meet lots of new ‘Tramps’ which is yes, what we do actually call other trampoline enthusiasts,” she said.

The Irish Student Trampoline open takes place in Belfast from the 4th - 7th of April where DCU are expected to be represented by a strong team of Trampolinists.

“

I’m really enthusiastic about pushing the trampolining competitions within DCU.

Niamh Ní Iceadha in action in Trinity.

Credit: DCU Gymnastics And Trampolining / Facebook

Sport

23

Irish stars in Oz inspire Burtenshaw to Irish Uni squad Denise Burtenshaw, Hannah Tobin Jones and Shauna Hendrick have been called up to Irish University AFL panel.

John Morley Deputy Sports Editor @JohnMorleysport

A

fter a training session in Perth last November and following Collingwood’s Sarah Rowe and The Giant’s Cora Staunton, Denise Burtenshaw has been inspired to make the Irish University AFL panel.

“I was over in Australia in November and I went to an AFL training session over there, so I kind of got a taste for it then and started following the Irish crowd that have gone over like Sarah Rowe and Cora Staunton,” said Burtenshaw.

“I started watching some of their games and said ‘this is a great sport and it would be great to get involved in’,” she added.

Club commitments with her Meath Intermediate club St Colmcille’s ruled Burtenshaw out from playing with the O’Connor Cup team in DCU, but tag rugby with DCU and her Gaelic football background made her switch to AFL very natural.

Following the establishment of the Women’s AFL club in DCU by Michael Kitchens, Burtenshaw and friends decided to try a beginners training session in Islandbridge.

“We went down and realised most of the people there actually play AFL so we were completely out of our depth,” she said.

Burtenshaw played with girls from a mix of Universities in a mini-blitz with

her side beating the other beginners on the day.

“We played against UCC, AIT, UCD and UL and we ended up winning the cup that day,” she said.

“We kind of made a show of ourselves at the cup with obviously not knowing the rules but with the Gaelic background we kind of had an idea of how to play,” she added.

Following their success in the Islandbridge blitz, Burtenshaw, fellow clubmate Hannah Tobin Jones and Shauna Hendrick (all DCU students), were all called up to the Irish University panel.

“Mike Currane, who is in charge of the university team, gave us a call up and asked us if we would be interested in playing for the Irish university panel,” said Burtenshaw.

Understanding the different nature of the full contact sport in comparison to ladies Gaelic football, Burtenshaw believes it was from her Gaelic skillset that she made the transition to AFL rather than tag rugby.

“Obviously, I didn’t want any injuries for Gaelic and having [tag rugby] helped with the transition [to AFL] but it was from the Gaelic I was scouted,” she said.

“I wouldn’t say scouted it was more like whoever plays Gaelic do you want to come play AFL,” she joked.

When asked if she would like the chance to join the Irish players going professional in Australia Burtenshaw told The College View, she would always take a great opportunity like that.

“I think I’d take any opportunity like that. I don’t think it’s a call you’d get

Denise Burtenshaw

very likely so any opportunity I get to go abroad [I’d take],” she said.

In terms of the Irish team Burtenshaw looked forward to hopefully being selected for the first Irish Women’s University match against England at the end of April.

“We played a blitz called the Leprechaun Cup up in Belfast,” she said.

“On the 13th of April we start training for a starting position to play England in the first ever university match,” she added.

Looking to the future of the sport in Ireland, Burtenshaw explained how the

“

Credit: Marie Keating Photography

I think I’d take any opportunity like that sport hopes to expand.

“There are a number of teams being set up to facilitate girls who aren’t in a university to play AFL with the hope of then trying for the Irish team outside the university panel,” she said.

“There is a European Cup at the mo-

ment but UCC are a well-established team, so they have a huge panel and they have Marie Keating, an established AFL player training them.

“It would be great to get a chance to play,” she added.

Four medals for DCU Archers at National Championships Niamh Merry, Nicolo Fantini, Fiachra MacDermott and Oskars Veide all won medals at the national championships.

Hugh Farrell Deputy Sports Editor @HughFSports

D

CU hosted its first National Archery Championships on the 24th with four DCU students winning medals.

Niamh Merry won gold in the Female Compound category and Nicølò Zuin Fantønį won Gold in the Instinctive category for DCU. Meanwhile fellow DCU students Fiachra MacDermott and Oskars Veide won silver and bronze respectively in the Mixed Recurve category with their own club. Fiachra shot with Carmel Malone and Oskars with Sarah Maloney, a DCU alumnus.

Adam Taylor and Mark Sharvin were also at the event, both DCU alumni with Adam winning Bronze in Male Recurve and Mark winning Gold in the Male Compound.

Merry also achieved 145 points out of 150 in the Head to Heads which is an Irish Record for Compound Women with the previous record being set

Niamh Merry at the National Championships

at 141.

Merry was happy with her performance and the event saying, “I got to shoot against a really experienced archer in my final match and was really pleased to have only missed out on 1st place by one point. It was a really close match and we were tied for most of it.

Image Credit: DCU Archery

“Overall, I’m really happy with how it went for me and it was also a great opportunity for the whole club to get to experience a non-student competition.

“The atmosphere is totally different than that of an IV, and being held in our own hall meant that a lot of our club members had the opportunity to expe-

rience that.”

DCU Archery PRO Santiago de Arribas de Renedo also said of the event that Philip Early was primarily responsible for getting DCU chosen as the location for the competition.

“He helped with organising everything and was Head Judge on the

day.

“Oskars Veide also played a major role in helping organise the event and in collaborating with Archery Ireland,” he told The College View.

MacDermott also said, “I think the weekend went decently for myself. I would have liked a better qualification but my head to head shooting was good and I was happy even though I was knocked out a little early.

“The person I lost to was having an amazing day and it was a very close match with both of us shooting very high scores.

“I did get silver in the mixed team category which was really enjoyable and again the standard of both my team and the winning team was very high in the finals.”

A special word of thanks was also given to Mark Higgins and Tyrone Kearns.

The pair were responsible for Ianseo and getting scores up as soon as possible and also to Fergal Smyth and Jack Caffrey from the Sports Complex for helping out as well.

sport

INSIDE The Irish Powerchair League will be decided by a play-off should DCU Storm beat Midlands United in April.

Torrans aiming to inspire the next generation Irish International Sarah Torrans also coaches underage teams in Loreto Hockey Club and Loreto College St. Stephens Green.

A

Gerard Grimes Sports Editor @GerardGrimes11

t just 20 years of age, and still a DCU student, Sarah Torrans is already a fully-fledged Ireland international.

Last summer, Torrans was in the reserve squad for the 2018 Women’s Hockey World Cup, which saw the sport rise to prominence in the country as Ireland finished as runners up to the Netherlands.

The 20x20 campaign asks people to pledge an action to support girls and women in sport in Ireland in 2019.

The aim is to make a genuine shift across the country, giving more to a nation of sport lovers as well as the gift of sport to more girls, according to the campaign’s official website.

Torrans, who already had 14 caps to her name prior to the World Cup, has made it her aim ‘to inspire the next generation of young female athletes’.

The Loreto Hockey Club player is now also coaching underage teams in both her club and her previous school.

“I currently coach underage teams in my club Loreto Hockey Club, and where I previously went to school, Loreto College St. Stephens Green.

“I really enjoy coaching these teams and get great enjoyment when I see them improving every week.

The Ireland squad during their World Cup homecoming on Dame Street.

“I always encourage them to go and watch senior games at the weekend where, hopefully, we can inspire them and show them what they can do in a few years’ time,” Torrans told The College View.

Torrans mentioned the various roles available to women in sport and explained what she hopes to see before the end of the 20x20 campaign.

“I would always advise girls and women to get involved with sport.

Whether you are a player or a coach,

women are capable of fulfilling any role.

“Sport gives you great confidence and belief which is effective in everyday life,” Torrans said.

“Of course the aim is to see more women involved in sport by 2020 but also to have much more coverage of women’s sport.

“More coverage on the news, on TV and more advertising of upcoming events. This is important for the next generation to get out and support wom-

Credit: Ramsey Cardy / Sportsfile

en and to aspire to get their name in the paper someday,” she explained.

Hockey Ireland also made a pledge on March 8, as they launched their Green Army Ambassador programme and pledged to ‘visit more schools than ever before around the country inspiring the next generation’.

“Hockey Ireland are trying to get around to as many schools and clubs as they can and I’m sure this will continue throughout the summer as well,” Torrans said.

Loreto currently sit second in the EY Hockey League, six points behind Pegasus, who need just one more point to win the league.

Loreto are also in the semi-final of the Irish Senior Cup. They played Railway Union in the semi-final of the cup on Sunday (result not available at time of going to print).

“The Irish Senior Cup semi-final is also coming up as well as the Champions Trophy, which we hope to be part of.

“We also have the European Club Championships in Amsterdam in April, where we will play against the top teams in Europe which is very exciting,” Torrans said.

In regards to the national side, Ireland will host the FIH Series Finals in Banbridge in June.

Ireland are in Pool A with Malaysia, Czech Republic and Singapore while Pool B sees Korea, Scotland, Ukraine and France face each other.

The top two sides from this competition will secure a place in the Qualification Events for Tokyo 2020.

“This is a really important tournament for us in order to qualify for the Olympics.

“We will then focus on the Europeans in August and, depending on our previous results in these tournaments, hope to get a good draw for the final Olympic Qualification in November,” Torrans explained.

Clean sweep complete as Ladies Rugby win Tier One Final DCU Ladies Rugby have now won the Division 1 and 2 leagues, the Tier One Cup and the Kay Bowen Cup.

D

Joshua Freeman Contributor @thecollegeview

CU Ladies Rugby defeated University of Limerick 27-22 in a sensational win to claim their fourth piece of silverware this season in the SSI/IRFU Women’s Tier 1 final in Limerick last Wednesday.

It is the first time that DCU have lifted the All Ireland trophy to add to their Division 1, Division 2, and Kay Bowen Cup that they already claimed this year.

In the game itself, UL started the better with Laura Delaney scoring a try within the opening minutes, with Helen McDermott converting to make it 7-0. However, DCU responded quickly through a Hannah Heskin try.

A penalty for UL’s McDermott and a second try of the game from Heskin, without a conversion once more, left the game at 10-10 going into half-time.

Anna Doyle put DCU into the lead for the first time early in the sec-

ond-half with her side’s third try of the evening, but that didn’t last long as Rebecca Doohan went over for another UL try to tie things up again.

Doyle got in for her second try midway through the half to put five points between the sides.

With seven minutes remaining, UL thought they had won it as Julie Ingretta touched down to pull them level, with McDermott’s conversion nudging them two points in front.

DCU were camped on the UL line for the remainder of the game and broke UL hearts when they were awarded a penalty try in the final play of the game to win 27-22 on the night.

Speaking after the game DCU’s Molly Scuffil-McCabe told The College View that last year’s final loss really motivated the team to win this year.

“The hurt of not winning the final last year really stuck with us. We knew how the loss felt.

“We use that to fuel this year, which made that win all that bit better for those of us who played the final the year before,” she said.

She also spoke of how big an influ-

Credit: Student Sport Ireland

DCU Ladies Rugby celebrate winning the Tier 1 Cup

ence coach Eddie Fallon is, as he led the side to another win alongside fellow coach Alisa Hughes.

“Eddie is invaluable. He pays attention to detail and respects the girls for the work they put in and in return, they have great respect for him and what he is trying to get us to achieve,” she added.

Some of the team will have the

chance to win yet another competition when they play in the SSI College Sevens Tier 1, and Scuffil-McCabe has her eyes on making it a clean sweep this year.

“It’ll mean everything to every single person in the club,” she said in regard to winning it.

“Everybody has put in a serious shift this year.

“There’s girls here who train to give the starting team the best possible chance and it would be nice to have the trophies to show every single person’s effort,” she finished.

A win would see the team take five trophies of the five available this year and would confirm DCU’s remarkable rise and dominance in the women’s game.