Mid Year Update

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Written by President | 17 February 2011

Introduction

Every year around January people start asking ‘What has the SU done this year for us?’ So, as President of the SU, what have we done for you? For my election last year I promised accountability, transparency, and empowering students. I talked about a Vision for UCC students not for just one year, but for the long-term. I hope that the below goes a small way to showing you the volume of work not only I did for the last 6 months, but that the Union did as a whole.

I am incredibly lucky to have the team that I do, and I hope they know how grateful I am to them!

This is a short account of the successes we had thus far, and the challenges we face and that we will work on for the remainder of the year. It is by no means comprehensive and more detailed reports are available online.

Challenges faced in 2010

  • · Projected €30-€40,000 drop in SU budget due to recession and early termination of business deals
  • · Increasingly unstable political climate, national finances near bankruptcy, student-political disconnect
  • · Further cuts in funding to University already in debt, increasing costs to students to attend college
  • · Large Student Centre deficit in 2009/10 accounts passed to new General Manager and SU
  • · Large drop in revenue to catering outlets prevented certain changes i.e. cans in bars not financially possible
  • · Increasing officer workload combined with decreasing funding for support staff to Union
  • · Arctic conditions disrupting business & events

What was the good news?

  • · Union finances healthy despite revenue drop due to recession
  • · Prevented a €1,500 jump in fees, negotiated a 0% increase in Fees for second and subsequent children going to UCC, prevented a 10% cut in the Grant, protected Disability Funding, protected Student Assistance Fund etc.
  • · Guaranteed Grant reform through lobbying and passing of Student Support Bill
  • · Re-opened the bars during day-time for R&G Week J
  • · UCCSU (co-) organised Nov 3rd protest and Dec 1st protest, despite arctic weather
  • · Work started on Mardyke Pavillion (funded by UCC SU through SS Levy Fund)
  • · Work started Feb 21st on UCC Mardyke Extension (SU President sits on planning group & Director)
  • · Negotiated with Lord Mayor & Local Council that by end of term security cameras in College Road area will be operational
  • · Negotiated with Kylemore & Student Centre on food and drinks prices/deals to bring them as low as can be
  • · Produced with USI a comprehensive policy for tackling Graduate and Youth Unemployment, generally accepted by all parties into General Election policies
  • · Still no introduction of Conferring Fees in UCC Budget J
  • · Water fountain in Kane Building after 4 years of Science students asking for one J
  • · Agreement on various capital projects i.e. Postgraduate Common Room

What to look forward to in 2011?

  • · Work soon starting on re-negotiation of UCC banking contract & Union/Societies/Clubs sponsorship
  • · The General Election gives the student movement strong negotiating power with potential government
  • · A ‘general election road show tour’ and a voter registration drive
  • · A 2,500+ student concert on the Quad (moved to May 2011, in planning stage)
  • · A new €25m Student Hub (at planning & funding stage)
  • · An online merchandise shop for students & alumni for clothing/items (projected available by April)
  • · Potential all-Munster students Racecourse event on April 5th
  • · Online ticket-sales for balls & events on campus and in Cork City (aiming for late March)
  • · Postgraduate Common Room (approved in Dec ‘10, awaiting final approval to progress to design stage, aiming for completion by Sept 2011)
  • · New ‘smart chip’ Student ID card with cashless payments, printing & more (aiming for Sept 2011)
  • · Brookfield Recreational Area (in negotiation stages)

Student Centre: Changes

  • The SU sit in the majority on the Management Committee of the SC, and have 2 directorships on its board. Thanks to their great staff, a new General Manager and a ‘can-do’ attitude we have:
  • · Brand new ‘Print Shop’ with expanded services for printing/binding etc and a new price plan
  • · Lower prices on food & beverages, regular ‘Cheaper than Downtown deals’ and better quality meals
  • · Refurbished the New Bar and changed prices, installed new TV screen and new meal plans
  • · Put in couches downstairs to make the area more comfortable
  • · Digital Advertising
  • · Regular staff-student art expos in the café downstairs
  • · A loyalty card & points system
  • · Regular events in Devere Hall i.e. Rubber Bandits, Neil Delemere, Andrew Maxwell etc.
  • · Projected reversal of significant deficit to breakeven for Sept 2011

Union Reform

  • · Cut expenses for travel, all officers now stay in hostels as of July ‘10 (previously hotels), cut expenses for overnight allowances by 1/3rd.
  • · Reduced cost of part-time help to the Union
  • · Created 2 new positions out of current Deputy President role; Campaigns/Deputy and Commercial & Communications
  • · Expanded SU Executive to include new postgraduate reps and an Equality Officer
  • · Reformed budgeting process of Union; forecasting, moving to online banking in 2011 etc.
  • · Established a UCCSU Intern Unit to research for SU on legal, political, economic affairs
  • · Re-branding of the Union with new Logo & new CollegeRoad.ie
  • · UCC SU now has the highest online SU presence in Ireland in all mediums; website, Facebook, Twitter etc., beating TCD, UCD and the Union of Students in Ireland
  • · Currently expanding the business opportunities of UCCSU to provide a stable funding base away from Ents
  • · Facilitated ‘Student Assemblies’ on Jan 24th & 25th, the first since the 80s to give students a voice
  • · SU are doing an SU Survey of the Union to increase student feedback in February 2011
  • · Establishing a ‘Feedback system’ for student comments on the SU physically and online

Fees, Grants & Finances

  • · Published information on Registration Fee & Capitation breakdown in video blogs, online, and in print
  • · Wrote a paper on student fees, hardship and the economic climate for UCC’s Governing Body, presented it February 15th to large support and actions to help students are arising from it
  • · Minimised increase in Student Services Charge/Registration Fee to €500, no cut in disability supports, increase in Student
  • · Continuing the campaign on nursing pay for placements for the 2011-2014 period with the USI and INMO

University-wide

  • · Raised issue of Library Audit of textbooks in October
  • · Working with UCC to increase student placements at home and abroad
  • · Pushing for greater module-choice flexibility across UCC especially in the Sciences
  • · Pushing for language choices in non-humanities subjects i.e. the Sciences
  • · Working on various alumni projects and increasing UCC Alumni participation / donations

Brookfield & Westgate

  • · Working on nursing students’ placements & pay, clinical therapies work placements etc.
  • · Placed a greater focus on Brookfield with coffee mornings, mince pies, officer visits etc.
  • · Greater support to the Brookfield / Medicine & Health Representative

Postgraduates

  • · Tackling the issue of adequate pay for tutorials/demonstrations by postgraduates to Undergrads and resisting the increase of unpaid hours of mandatory demonstrations by Postgrads from 50 to150 hours until working conditions improve
  • · Designation of working space for Postgraduate Union Reps in 4 Elderwood project

Union of Students in Ireland

  • · Working on a new national/international student card with USI that will offer local, national and international discounts and deals on services and goods
  • · Divided up TDs for lobbying in Cork/Munster area with regional ITs including CIT SU pre-Budget 2011
  • · Working on an Electoral reform policy with USI to reform Local and National Government
  • · Co-authored USI’s Graduate Unemployment Policy with USI and UCC Intern Unit
  • · Co-ordinated with USI on November 3rd Protest, the biggest protest since 1960s
  • · Member of USI’s Campaign Working Group
  • · Member of USI’s ‘Hunt Report on Higher Education 2030’ Response Group
  • · Member of USI’s Constitutional Review Group

Representation

  • · Coverage in all national print media and radio stations such as 2FM, Today FM, RTE Radio 1 and even Pat Kenny on graduate unemployment, student fees, grants, funding and Conferring Fees. Regularly feature(d) in local Cork/Munster print media and radio stations such as 96FM and RedFM etc.
  • · Regular contact with all the TDs & Councillors in Cork City & County via email/phone/letter/face-2-face
  • · Lobbied over 127 Senators and TDs as part of USI’s October ‘Lobby of the Oireachtas’, the largest ever
  • · Lobbied Cork City Council and Cork County Council on Grants Payments etc.
  • · Have attended the Dáil 8 times this year, and the Public Accounts Committee
  • · Represented UCC SU in an international conference in Boston, MA (funded by national body, ASUA)

 


UCC Disabilty Awareness Week

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Written by President | 31 January 2011

Monday:

13.00-14.00 Boole 3 Opening Talk with:

  • Mary O'Grady Head of the UCC Disability Support Service
  • Linda Kelly AHEAD Project manager and 2 time USI Equality Officer
  • Sinead Kane- first registered blind solicitor in Ireland, and UCC graduate

15.00-17.00 Wheelchair Basketball training in Hall 2 Mardyke Arena

18.00: Boole 2 Screening of My Left Foot

Tuesday:

11.00: Amphitheatre: Launch of  UCC 24 hr Wheelchair Challenge with special guest the president of the IWA

12.00: Come visit the Irish Wheelchair Association information stand in front of the Boole library

14.00-16.00  Wheelchair basketball game with IWA team in Mardyke Hall 2

Wednesday:

12.00: Come visit our Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind information stand in front of the Boole library

17.00-19.00 Boole 3 Screening of Inside I'm Dancing

20.00: Table quiz in New Bar, all proceeding going to Irish Guide Dogs for the blind

Thursday:

12.00-14.00 Free Drop in Clinic at the Disability Support Service!

17.00-18.00 Boole 3 "Impact of disability laws on the third level education sector in Ireland” by Louise Crowley, BCL, LLM (NUI), Solicitor, UCC Law Faculty. Tea and biscuit reception to follow in the SU common room!

USI National Congress, December 11th 2010 Report

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Written by President | 12 December 2010

Student Support Bill to be signed into law before Christmas, provided FF TDs support it next week

Approved:

  • New USI/NUS-UK/NUS-USI Trilateral Agreement
  • Creation of General Election campaign & strategy
  • Creation of a campaign on Grants delays
  • Decision to place USI Annual Congress from 13th March-17th March
  • Reduction of delegate numbers per member union (one delegate per 1000, up form 1 per 700 students)
  • Passing of motion from UCD SU which read “National Council authorises the President and Officer Board (at the discretion of the President) to publicly call for the renegotiation of the Croke Park agreement if it is beneficial to members.”

As President of UCC SU I opposed the motion placed by UCD SU, by tabling a procedural motion not to discuss the issue (a 9a "that this item not be discussed), I then opposed it to outline the reasons why I believed such a motion if passed would damage UCC students, and then I abstained from the final vote. I had no options other than to speak with best judgment, or to remain silent which was worst choice available. I believe it is important on such a hugely national and politically charged issue that decisions I make on behalf of UCC students should be accountable and transparent- principles I have always abided by as President.

I believed it is was short-sighted, politically & strategically disasterous move as the Deal would likely be re-negotiated in a new Government, and we had no need to create a 'loaded gun' with the motion. I felt uncomfortable being part of a vote on such a decisive issue as it will be seen as joining the attack on the rank-n-file public sector, and also that I did not have a clear mandate on an issue I believed UCC students would have strong feelings on both ways. A call to cap all senior pay in the sector below €200,000 and/or to rework the Public Sector Moratorium to allow understaffed academic units to hire extra staff (i.e clinical therapies and management & marketing) would send a clearer and politically prudent message, while benefiting students.

I pointed out that we are 3 months away from a General Election and needed as many allies as possible to promote and enforce student policies/issues both in the public & private sector. We are attempting to work with staff in UCC to allow students home on polling day to vote, and good relations with the admin & academic unions are key to this.

Currently the Croke Park Deal is essential as UCC are dependent upon it for seriously vital reforms in staff practices, completion of the 'Workload Allocation Model'. I believed that should be Deal be re-opened then new negotiations on pay/reform will delay current reform in UCC for significant periods and would likely lead to further work-to-rules and strikes, which will affect students unnecessarily.

I believe there needs to be significant reform in the public sector in many areas, but I fear this 'loaded gun' option could end up destroying the good working relationship with various unions UCCSU have built up this year, which currently has resulted in involvement with unions on common issues like student nurse placements/pensions/payments with the ASTI/IMO/TUI. This 'loaded gun' option could damage UCC students & recent graduates, especially those streaming into the public sector by damaging those new relations by disenfranchising the rank n file public sector workers that are not on high wages, and are sympathetic to student issues.

I acknowledge that the Croke Park Deal disproportionately protects pay over non-pay and that approximately 70% of the Education Budget is pay. The cutbacks inflicted by Government are primarily on the non-pay side (grants, Uni/IT funding etc) as a result of this. I believe however the majority of the public sector do not earn high-wages, and have experienced a real cut in income through increases in taxes and the Universial Social Charge (replacing health and income levies). Over 60% earn less than €50,000. The education sector in particular, as cited in the Irish Examiner, have experienced a 12.3% average reduction in wages since 2009.

Yours,

Keith

Student Council Agenda

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Written by President | 06 December 2010

 

Student Council Agenda Dec 8th 2010
6.30pm Boole 3
  1. E & S Presentation
  2. Motion 1 Brand Management
  3. Motion 2 Deposit Protection Scheme
  4. Motion 3 Welfare Campaigns
  5. Motion 4 Women's Participation in Student Politics.
  6. Motion 5 Abortion Debate
  7. Motion 6 Environmental Officer
  8. Motion 7 SRI Campaign
  9. Motion 8 Nov 3rd Protest
  10. Item 9 for Approval; Equality Officer Vote
  11. Emergency Motion 10 Electoral Commission
  12. Emergency Motion 11 Mass Assembly
  13. Officer Reports Q&A
  14. Equality Working Group
  15. Council Awards
  16. Announcements
  17. AOB

 

Speech to Cork March, 2pm December 1st 2010

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Written by President | 02 December 2010

A chairde, If I can have your attention please- I have just gotten word from the Gardaí that there is a occupation going on in Dáil Éireann and the Dept of Finance at the moment by a small group of people. The media are reporting them as a group of criminals and dissents bent on causing havoc in Ireland.

 

Their names are Fianna Fáil and the Greens!

 

For the past 2 weeks we have been treated to lies, subterfuge and degradation by a morally bankrupt Government who now have financially bankrupt our country and handed our futures into the hands of foreign powers that care only for their investors or the super-powers of the Eurozone. Now, every cent of tax we earn for the next generation will be spend on servicing the interest rates on loans we cannot repay, for a debt we did not create.

 

We have been told that it is us that will pay for the last 13 years of reckless lending by wanker bankers and the excesses of casino capitalism, and of cronyism rife in the elite of Irish society and the political class- by cuts in the minimum wage to those poorest in Ireland which the experts say will lead to a further contraction in the economy, further cuts and hardship.

 

We are told that students surviving on a shoestring, most lacking jobs and those with them will have their wages cut, will have to face €2,000 in Fees with promises of further hikes, and another 5% cut in the measly Grant on top of the 5% last year.

 

Meanwhile our colleges are being crippled with funding cuts, forcing them to drop courses or cap numbers entering 3rd level. And even after all the toil and pain and effort students and schoolchildren will endure, they once again are being reared for export like cattle to benefit foreign economies.

 

We are told that the price of their failure is to fall on the 450,000 unemployed by reducing their social welfare until they are forced to accept jobs- jobs that don’t exist or jobs that pay so little as to be meaningless to help families survive.

 

In all, we are told that the private debt of economic traitors will be borne by all of Ireland and most heavily on the young future generations of Irish people. Denis Brosnan the businessman spelled it out clearly in an interview with the SINDO on Sunday -that for the next five years in Ireland school-leavers and college graduates looking for jobs have no future in Ireland.

 

And we are told we were all to blame for this crisis!

 

Where we to blame? NO! Where you to blame? NO!

 

Well today let us tell them something; we will resist and we will remember!

 

We will remember that this failed government has sold into serfdom and servitude the hopes and futures of this and the next generation of young people and children to foreign masters, and chained them to hardship.

 

You need to look no further than the Toy Show last Friday for the price levied on our children- veiled behind hints that Santa had to employ less elves this year and thus had less toys for children was a clear message: The hopes and dreams of children this Christmas are worth less than bankers & developers.

 

We face not just into a Lost Generation of emigration, but a Broken Generation marked by broken hopes and dreams, and the erosion of the bedrock of our society, our community, education and health systems.

 

But today, today we are United. Place your arms around each other’s shoulders for a moment, and stand together- employed, unemployed, public and private sector, students and lecturers, old and schoolchildren. One fight, one struggle.

 

For better or for worse we are the Future of this Nation, and today we begin to reclaim it.

 

They have placed us up against a wall. A wall which together we will tear down by hand and by vote. And with the rubble of that wall we will build ourselves a new society, a New Republic founded on community, solidarity, equality and sustainability.

 

In the lecture halls, in our offices and on the streets- to save our future we will Resist and for a generation, we will Remember!

 

-Ends-

 

*Check Against Delivery*

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    Just sent out an important allstudents. Have a look at it, it may contain exam tips!

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    RT @ben_honan: Kings of Leon, not a cloud in the sky, picking up our tubby president to be @eoghanhealy and hitting the gym. Great morning!

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    @AoifeSpengeman we've sent out a good five allstudents about this! Go on to http://t.co/XVbtnABK for details :)

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