Again, etc. [SU Elections '12]

Ents is unopposed? Does this mean we can expect a nice uneventful election?

...please?

Would like to agree with the above posters. SU elections is the biggest pain in the arse of the college, with people annoying you for a week and interrupting lectures etc.

Uni Times took the mickey out of the candidates this year imo. Feekin delighted in all honesty, they just want it on their cv end of story.

Raedwald wrote: »

Uni Times took the mickey out of the candidates this year imo. Feekin delighted in all honesty, they just want it on their cv end of story.

If you're talking about the article with profiles on all the candidates, then I didn't get that impression at all.

Anyway, of course a few of them are mainly thinking about their CV. You'll find that in all voluntary roles of responsibility. But for example I think its obvious that the FEE candidate is probably not just doing it for his CV (saying that, he will get my last preference). There are a few others as well who seem relatively genuine.

Wouldn't have a problem with the scrapping of one or two positions, but roles such as Welfare officer are pretty important. Not necessarily on a college-wide basis, but for the students who need help and don't know where to find it.

languagenerd wrote: »

Mark200 wrote: »

Anyway, of course a few of them are mainly thinking about their CV. You'll find that in all voluntary roles of responsibility.

This isn't voluntary, they get paid for the year.

Fair point, I guess what I meant was taking time to do something that's not part of your degree and probably not part of your career plan. IE they may get paid, but they're probably not doing it for the money

Has anyone else noticed that a certain female candidate's poster... em... offers more than others?

I don't think John Tighe is a terrible candidate (based on the UT videos). Still getting my last preference though because of the whole FEE thing (and the idea that he might appear at FEE protests while SU President), but he came across as a lot more reasonable than I expected.

DragonsFire wrote: »

That was actually a deliberate attempt at a play on words you see tighe and tighe very similar so that was deliberate

Brilliant pun, don't know how I didn't get that one.

DragonsFire wrote: »

As for your other points, I am sorry but even you must see from your economic viewpoint that denying students an education will only harm the Irish economy and thus we will attract less MNCs and will not be able to create this smart economy all the neo-liberals keep going on about

Fees do not deny students an education. Third-level participation rates in England have not fallen since fees were introduced there. Free fees have had two effects - they have crippled the Irish education system which has become chronically underfunded. The government does not have the money to pump into universities and the result is TCD sliding down the rankings as it works on less than half the budget of Oxford or Cambridge. No universities in the top 50 in the world - not exactly too attractive for MNCs, is it? Secondly, we have students taking courses that have absolutely no economic use and for which jobs do not exist. Maybe if you had to pay for your degree, you might have thought twice about what you'd do afterwards before you chose to study Ancient History and Archaeology, eh?

DragonsFire wrote: »

Well actually the feedback that I have received has been generally positive (most people just seem happy to see a political candidate running) and I think the fact that the other two candidates fail to mention the national issues and because of my insistence on talking about fees must then take a stance on them can only be a good thing for improving the SU

Maybe the fact that neither of the other candidates have mentioned fees shows the generally antipathy the student body has towards them? The fact is - we already have fees. You've lost. Flogging a dead horse isn't going to help the SU - it's a waste of resources. The other two candidates have realised this and have focused on issues students actually care about. You haven't.

DragonsFire wrote: »

Well I mean it's not only the 'far-left' that are going on occupations anymore is it? With Messrs Gary Redmond and co. and the SU in NUIM taking the initative and having occuaptions

Occupations are not a democratic means of protest. I am not familiar with the SU in NUIM, thankfully, but it certainly sounds like they're in the realms of the far-left too.

DragonsFire wrote: »

and talking about illiterate policies, the VAT increase was possibly the stupidest thing the government could have done in that it will damage consumer confidence and will hurt the economy generally, especially small business owners, such as my parents. This is further exacerbated because they can't get short-term loans fromt he banks because while the taxpayer own the majority of banks in Ireland, we don't have control over them

Ok, so how do you propose we plug the gaping hole in our finances? Even before interest repayments on our debt, we're leaking about €10-15 billion a year. I'd suggest cutting spending - but you actually want to increase services, not reduce them? So we are left with tax rises. Now, while I agree that VAT increases tend to depress consumer spending, the alternative is increasing payroll taxes - and when the unemployment rate is above 10%, this would have the effect of seriously damaging job creation. VAT is a "safe" tax as despite being regressive in fiscal terms, it is not easily avoided like other taxes are. Economically speaking, it was the best option of a bad lot.

Banks can't be forced to increase their lending - there is a massive liquidity crisis in the Eurozone at the moment and it would be terribly foolish of them to start throwing money at small businesses in the current economic climate. Remember what happened when they threw money at first-time home-owners up to 2007? Didn't end too well, did it?

DragonsFire wrote: »

My pamphlet was drawn using Microsoft Publisher

I'd suggest Photoshop the next time. Publisher looks terribly unprofessional and it's a shame when you're printing off hundreds of flyers.

DragonsFire wrote: »

Well actually this was quite good I would like if people debated these points with me, Would you agree that these elections would be more interesting if they had more political candidates, of whatever leanings, involved?

Debate is good - but you need to ground your political beliefs in reality.

To John Tighe, I'm not going to jump in and start insulting you like those other two condescending dickheads; the fact that you're coming on here and asking people's opinions is something I support.

I know very little about your campaign, but when it comes to the Student Union in general I tend to think it's full of attention-seeking careerists. My main objection to how the SU has behaved in the last few years is that there was very little active dialogue regarding the fees issue.

As a "left-wing nutjob", I jumped on the anti-fees bandwagon in the name of equality without much thought. I know that if I had to pay full fees up front I would never have been able to go to Trinity, but I could conceivably support a system that would allow me to pay it back when I start earning a good wage, as long as it doesn't act as a barrier to people like me from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

I don't think I'm in a minority regarding this. I could support a students' union that represents the will of the general student population. A lot of students aren't happy that there's been no dialogue regarding fees, and that the SU haemmorhages funds on stupid things like the massive piss-up that is class rep training.

What I'd like to see with the SU is dialogue. Ask the student population how they feel about issues. Hope this criticism is somewhat helpful.