the University Observer

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Siptu object to privatisation of Main Restaurant

UCD Athletics Club demand apology for closed running track

Students’ Union to abolish loyalty card schemeby Katie HugHes · News editor

the students’ union have made the de-cision to withdraw their loyalty card service, which was put in place under last year’s sabbatical team, due to their current financial situation.

su President Pat de brún stated that he was attempting to make the cuts to avoid having to reduce funding to front-line services that would have a greater impact on students, “we’re looking for other areas where we can save money; the loyalty card is one area that sprang

to my mind because it costs us in the re-gion of €12,000 a year for upkeep and maintenance.”

Following approval from the union’s executive Committee, de brún contact-ed the company providing the service, 20-20 insights, in an effort to terminate their contract. “it’s kind of complicated because it’s a three-year agreement that we’re only a year and a half through. it is kind of an unusual situation that we’re in and finances are very tight. i’m hop-ing that we can reach some kind of an agreement whereby we can leave early.”

de brún cites the introduction of the u-Card system on campus as fur-ther reason to terminate the loyalty card scheme, “with the roll-out of the u-Card on campus, its relevance comes into question and i just don’t think that the cost is justifiable in the light of the u-Card starting … i think [the loyalty card] was a great idea, but now that the u-Card has come on board across cam-pus, potentially the su shops could just be involved with that as well but that’s a bit further down the line … the option is likely there that we could join that sys-

tem and it wouldn’t cost us anything.”the original contract involved a

set-up cost last year as, according to de brún, the loyalty card scheme “was involved with the whole till system of the shops … there’s a lot of software in-volved and there’s a lot of upkeep with that software, the whole system, the administration of it through our web-site, that has a cost with it per year.”

de brún describes the sign-up for the initiative last year as “reasonable”, with approximately 6,000 students registering to the system, though he ad-

mits that the number of students using the scheme did not reflect the number that signed up, “people that use it regu-larly is a lot lower, opportunities for de-velopment of it didn’t quite materialise, in that i would have liked to have put drinks tokens on it, i would have like to have put food deals on it, but for a va-riety of technical reasons some of that wasn’t possible. that’s where i saw the real value of the loyalty card as opposed to just an accumulation of one cent back for every euro spent, which is not a great return.”

by Katie HugHes · News editor

uCd recently announced that the Main restaurant on campus was to be put out for tender. this statement came following the licensing rights to the majority of catering outlets on campus being given to Kylemore services group after a tendering process took place over the summer.

according to an email sent out by the uCd siPtu section Committee, “the announcement was made with scant regard to the loyalty and commitment that staff displayed over the years.”

However, a university spokesperson stated that, “following a tender process, contract caterers will be appointed to operate the main catering services at uCd. in this regard, uCd continues to comply with the Croke Park agreement in the ongoing consultation with siPtu as the representative trade union including confirmation that the employment terms and conditions of all existing permanent staff will be retained following the award of the tender.”

siPtu is demanding that the restaurant be retained by uCd in order to bring “an end to privatisation”, that full accountability be held for “managerial decisions which led to difficulties” and for “full transparency about the accounts of the restaurant” with an independent audit assessment taking place.

according to siPtu, uCd appeared before the Labour relations Committee on November 19th, 2009 and agreed to a trial period of two years to see how the restaurant performed, with

an agreement put in place stating that “at the end of this two year period the situation will be reviewed by management: if there has not been a significant revenue improvement at that stage it is accepted that management will revert to its original proposal to appoint an outsourced catering manager.”

siPtu stated that the deficit of the restaurant was €470,000 in 2009, €320,000 after the following year and €70,000 in the financial year just finished.

siPtu claims that the deficit would have been even lower had “very poor management decisions not taken place”, the results of which included “a loss of €70,000 [arising] from moving the sandwich bar upstairs … a ten year contract was awarded to britvic which caused an immediate increase in cost

Editorial

Ivan Yates and Prof. Pat O’Connor

on educational reform & universities’ glass ceiling

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Observer Survey: What students really

think of societies

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price – and a further loss of revenue … money from a private donation was used to create a private dining room – but this was then ripped out a few years later … costs for electricity and contract cleaning appear to be apportioned to the restaurant in an unfair way.”

siPtu maintain that uCd have ignored “significant improvements that have taken place in the restaurant … if uCd management can break an agreement and start privatising parts of the college, a precedent will have been set for all staff. we are, therefore, not willing to accept this situation and shall soon be calling a general meeting of all staff to discuss how we respond to this and other issues. we will not tolerate a situation where the hard work and loyalty of union members is thrown back in our face.”

by Kate rotHweLL · dePuty editor

the uCd athletics track was officially closed as of Monday 21st November. uCd athletics Club Captain, richard owens, was told of the track’s imminent closure shortly before an email was sent by Vice President for students, Martin butler, to students and staff informing them of the end of the “operational life” of the facility due to health and safety concerns.

butler described the poor condition of the track as the reason for its clo-sure; “as the surface is badly worn and becomes slippy when wet, it should be closed to all users.” However, owen maintains that until “diggers and bull-dozers moved in” the following morn-ing, it was still usable. “it wasn’t great, it was the oldest track in ireland, but it was still in perfectly usable condition … we know there are plans for a new track, which is great, but we were per-fectly happy with what we had.”

owens explained how the closure of the track will affect not only the 256 members of the Club, but five local schools, a running club, and members of the public. an alternative location must also now be found for the traditional belfield staging of national charity event the goaL mile.

students affected by the closure have been involved in a campaign to ‘save’ the track since the announcement was made. the campaign has so far included an “emergency meeting” between the athletics Club, sports officer Paddy guiney, and students’ union Campaigns and Communications officer, brendan Lacey, as well as a “fun run” around campus. a written petition reached over three thousand signatures last week, and an assembly meeting, held in con-junction with Lawsoc, was due to take place on Monday 28th November.

Numerous political and sporting personalities have voiced their support for the campaign, including tds olivia Mitchell and Micheál Martin, and ath-letes such as sonia o’sullivan, Paula radcliffe and david gillick.

guiney stated that the late notice students were given regarding the clo-sure was the impetus behind the cam-paign, and that they were seeking “an apology for the way the athletics Club were treated” and wished to see details of the track removed from the uCd pro-spectus and website: “we don’t want it advertised because it is not there.”

director of sport brian Mullins ac-knowledged that the closure was a “shock and a very big disappointment” for students and explained that short-term alternatives including “not only synthetic surfaces on campus and grass areas but also options like the irishtown track” were being explored.

butler expressed the intention of the university “to provide an alterna-tive facility on campus in the future, subject to funding becoming available.” Mullins stated that the “preferred lo-cation for a replacement would be in richview.” both he and owens ex-pressed hope that funding for a new track might be obtained from the sports Capital Programme, which hav-ing been suspended for the past three years is due to be reintroduced by the current government in 2012, with a budget of €30 million.

should funding become available, owens emphasised that the athletics Club would strive to raise a portion of the required sum themselves. “the ex-act figure uCd sport has quoted us is €1.6 million for a new track, so … we think it’s only fair that the club would have to raise €100,000 to €150,000 and then whatever else, to make up the rest of the track.”

Talks ToSnow Patrol

Photographer: David Nowak

Photographer: David Nowak

The University Observer · 29 November 20112

felt happy when…’ – we’re going to put those up on the wall in the student Cen-tre … i really wanted a physical mani-festation of the week … something that people can see because you always get people that can’t go to the talks or can’t go to the comedy event or won’t see you that day in arts or wherever you are.”

breslin was happy with the response from students and believes that the vari-ous national and student mental health campaigns are having a positive effect, “i’m genuinely surprised at the amount of people writing notes and taking time out to engage in a campaign that may have been stigmatised before … the main objective is to reduce the stigma, that really does seem to be happening right across the board”.

one of the biggest events of the week

was the ardal o’Hanlon and Foil arms and Hog gig in the student bar, which was organised by the Comedy society. other events included a duvet day and talks about mental health.

during the week, breslin wanted to address the stigma associated with “feeling down”, expressing that “peo-ple come into me and say i’m the only one that’s like this or i’m really sorry i’m like this or you must think i’m aw-ful, not understanding that there are so many people in the exact same boat and that it’s ok not to feel ok”.

breslin advises students combating stress during the exam period to “take a break, do something that makes you happy because there is a lot of pressure at this time of year”.

Observer Newsnews@observer.ie

uCd sVP take part in operation Christmas ChilduCd’s st Vincent de Paul society, in con-junction with the students’ union, is tak-ing part in ‘operation Christmas Child’, a worldwide project that began in 1993 to help disadvantaged families during the holiday season.

there will be a Christmas tree in the student Centre, and one in the Library building. on the trees there will be tags with the name, age and gender of a child, to indicate what type of gift would be suitable. students will be able to take a tag and place a gift under the tree for the child in question.

auditor of uCdsVP Colm o’Mahony explained that the presents “go to kids in disadvantaged areas and it can really help; not only will it help the kids, but also help reduce the financial burden on parents. Christmas is expensive enough, and if you don’t have a lot of money com-ing in this can really help people”. the gifts will go to children in the south in-ner-city area.

uCd welfare officer rachel breslin is overseeing the project. “i know that students are really willing to help … they love to help people that were their own age once, and have been through Christ-mas, and know what a special time it is for children”.

su organise extra-Hour study spaces for studentsextra-hour study spaces will be provided for students in the lead up to and during the upcoming Christmas exams. the plan is scheduled to commence on december 5th and close on december 21st.

the study area will be located in the student Centre, in either the astra Hall or the blue room, with approximately thirty-five seats being available to stu-dents from 11pm to 3am on weekdays and from 8pm to 1am on weekends.

the initiative was that of students’ union education officer sam geoghe-gan, who is “delighted” with the imple-mentation of the extra study facilities, “hopefully students use it, it’s been a big push; it will be in the exam guide, which will be published in study week too, just to emphasise the importance of it”.

geoghegan is currently in talks with the library regarding the possibility of an-nouncing the facility alongside the regu-lar announcements which notify students that the library is closing, “if you want to continue studying you can go on there and there’ll be toilet facilities, vending machines and security and safety”.

a member of the student Centre staff will be present throughout the evening. the su are going to be covering the costs of staff, “not all of the staff costs, they’re giving us a very considerable discount. obviously the student Centre are not go-ing to pay their staff members into the all hours without getting a little back”.

Contingency Plans inPlace for snowuCd have formed a contingency plan for end-of-semester exams should extreme weather conditions, public transport strikes or a medical epidemic interfere in the smooth running of end of semester exams.

students’ union education officer sam geoghegan explained the reason behind their requesting such a plan be made, “the main point last year was the lack of com-munication and no-one really knew what was going on and it was such exceptional circumstances last year; if it happens again we want to be better prepared.”

according to The Contingency Plans for UCD Registry for End-of-Semester Exams, “a group of key staff should convene as soon as the risk of examinations becomes known, the examinations process and dates are con-sidered under serious threat when the non-attendance rate of the examination hall rises above five per cent”. the group would then decide if and which examination sessions should be cancelled, allowing for a mini-mum notice of four hours to students and staff “if practical and possible”.

it will be decided this week whether stu-dents’ union representatives will be a part of this group, although su President Pat de brún stated that “regardless of whether we sit on it, we’ll be privy to the conversation in an official capacity”.

News iN Briefby eVaN o’QuigLey & Katie HugHes

uCd scientist discovers colour of ancient mothby Katie HugHes · News editor

a group of scientists led by a member of uCd’s school of geological sciences, dr Maria McNamara, have recently discovered the colour of ancient moths from analysis of their forty-seven mil-lion year old fossils.

the fossils were found in germany, at the Messel oil-shale pit near Frank-furt, which is a uNesCo world heritage site. the shale-pit is a world-renowned fossil site, due to its importance in un-derstanding ancient eco systems.

the fossils structures were analysed using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, which allowed dr McNamara and her team to determine that the colour that moths bare today are not their original colours. additionally, they were also able to show that the colour is not gen-erated by pigments but is a structural colour and so, by using the preserved structural features, the team was able to reconstruct what the original co-lours would have been.

the reconstruction of the colour of the forewings as a matte, non-irides-cent yellow-green allowed dr McNa-mara and her team to determine that they had a double function, “these co-lours would have functioned as camou-flage when the moths were resting in leafy backgrounds, but when the moths were feeding, these colours would have

stood out against the background of any flowers they would have been feed-ing from. in that case, the flowers could have functioned as a warning signal … they’re extremely toxic so the colours could have presumably been advertis-ing to predators, ‘hang on, i taste un-pleasant’”.

dr McNamara explains that there are two different aspects to the experi-

by aoiFe broPHy

Mental Health week took place from the 21st to the 25th of November in uCd. it was run by the students’ union with support from organisations Please talk and reach out.

su welfare officer, rachel breslin, explained that the campaign was de-signed to create awareness about men-tal health and to reduce the stigma as-sociated with mental health problems: “a lot of events we’re running this week

are very serious events, but there are also some light-hearted events … we’re trying to get it across in the biggest va-riety of ways possible so that everyone can get involved.”

included in the 2,000 mental health packs handed out across campus dur-ing the week were leaflets, important phone numbers, pens, badges and two sheets of paper which would become part of a “state of Mind” wall in the student Centre, “one says ‘i last felt sad when…’ and the other says ‘i last

ment, “working on fossils is one side of the story but the other is actually to try and replicate the fossilisation pro-cess in experiments; at the moment i’m working on a series of experiments on insects that have these kind of struc-tural colours to try and simulate what happens to the colour when the ani-mals are fossilised”.

dr McNamara explained the signifi-

cance of the findings, “on a small scale, finding evidence of coloured fossils is extremely rare, so just that fact in itself is a very significant find. being able to actually reconstruct the original co-lours, to show that the colours we see today have been altered by the fossili-sation process, that’s really important because the colours and colour pat-terns that the animal would have had are what tell you about how it commu-nicated with others of the same species and other species”.

similar techniques can be applied to many fossilised insects and potentially lots of other fossils too, as structural colours that leave physical traces in fossils can be found in birds, mammals, fish and plants.

the research for the project was not carried out in uCd but at yale universi-ty, where dr McNamara is currently on an irCset-Marie Curie international Mobility Fellowship.

The moth in glycerine, which make its structural colors appear yellow.Images: Dr Maria McNamara

A reconstruction of the moth

Mental Health week

by deNis VaugHaN

biosensia, a spin-in company based at NovauCd, has secured a €1.2 million investment, which they will use to ad-vance their commercial partnership strategy and develop its new technol-ogy, rapiPlex.

NovauCd, the innovation and tech-nology transfer Centre, is responsible for the commercialisation of research carried out at uCd. it also works with uCd researchers in establishing what business model is most suitable for the commercialisation of the intellectual property. this can mean licensing to partners or creating spin-in companies such as biosensia.

“the idea was generated by the com-pany founders and executive team as an answer to an unmet market need for fast, versatile and low-cost point of care platform technology,” explains Chief executive officer of biosensia, diar-muid Flavin.

rapiPlex can perform up to twelve separate analyses simultaneously on a single sample and provides test results in as little as five minutes. the rapiPlex platform is suitable for use in a wide range of areas; to test for infectious diseases such as HiV, respiratory dis-eases and stds, as well as carrying out hormone and allergy testing. it can also be used to test for drugs such as meth-

amphetamine and cocaine. the prod-uct is suitable for roadside use, which means it could potentially be used by the gardaí to test suspected drug users.

the product has huge potential for the healthcare sector. Flavin states that “our technology allows the tran-sition of complex immunoassays from the centralised laboratory out into the community. tests which traditionally could only be carried out in a large cen-tral laboratory can, through the use of biosensia’s technology, be carried out in doctors’ offices and other point of care environments. biosensia technol-ogy allows the use of a wide variety of samples types and can test for up to twelve different analytes from a single patient sample”.

“the technology will mostly be used in human clinical diagnostic settings such as a hospital a&e department or a doctor’s office. However, the technology also has applications in other fields such as veterinary medicine, environmental testing, and food and beverage testing.”

biosensia’s main aim is to achieve Fda approval for their first product by the end of 2012. they also plan to en-gage with commercial partners to bring additional products to the market. the company was recognised as a new in-novator in the Irish Times Innovation Magazine in august as a result of their revolutionary new technology.

NovauCd company secure €1.2 million investment

by Katie HugHes · News editor

uCd Professor of Psychiatry & Mental Health research, Prof. Kevin Malone, last week announced a medal set up in honour of the late uCd Newman Pro-fessor of Mental Health research, Pro-fessor eadbhard o’Callaghan.

the awarding of the medal will commence in 2012, with the first week of september being the final deadline for submission of an abstract. appli-cations will be open to all postgradu-ate researchers who are involved with mental health research anywhere in uCd. Following the adjudication of the submissions, the top three candidates will be invited to give an oral presen-tation, answering questions in a con-ference at the end of November. if the winning candidate is of a standard that the committee deem worthy, they will be awarded the eadbhard o’Callaghan medal.

the opportunity to enter an ab-stract to qualify for the medal will be open each year; however, the medal itself will not necessarily be awarded every year. Prof. Malone explains that “eabhard had a big thing about a non-slipping standard, we’re not just going to award a medal for the sake of it. if the standard of post-graduate research excellence in uCd isn’t reached, the medal won’t be awarded. obviously, we want to award it, we want to encourage [students].”

Prof. Malone explains that the medal was set up to acknowledge the legacy of Prof. o’Callaghan, who passed away in May 2011. Prof. Malone explained that

one of Prof. o’Callaghan’s passions was the idea of “a young postgraduate step-ping forth in the field of mental health research and to support their efforts to pursue higher degrees and to pro-duce high quality research in ireland in uCd.” it was hence deemed fitting to create a medal that would remember Prof. o’Callaghan in this way.

the idea for the medal was first presented by Prof. Malone to the Head of Medicine and Medical special-ties, Prof. Michael Keane, who then brought it forward to the school of Medicine for further approval. Prof. Malone also discussed the idea with Prof. o’Callaghan’s wife, Mrs. Virginia o’Callaghan, who was “very pleased that this was the way that the univer-sity was going to acknowledge [Prof. o’Callaghan], because he was very fond of the academic pursuits and the aca-demic drive within uCd”.

Prof. o’Callaghan was described by Prof. Malone as “an inspirational leader to a cohort of young irish psychiatrists, who always championed excellence above mediocrity”. He founded the First episode Psychosis deteCt Proj-ect in south dublin, which was estab-lished as an “early detection, interven-tion and relapse-prevention program” for every breaking first episode psy-chosis case in the region, the premise of which was that “if early, timely and universal best practice clinical care can be delivered to those who suffer a first episode of psychosis, the consequences of this illness can be modified to have a positive impact throughout the life course”.

eadbhard o’Callaghan Medal announced in honour of late Professor

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 3News

eib provide €90 million for uCd campus development

by Katie HugHes · News editor

a team of uCd researchers conducted a series of experiments last week on a muscle stimulation device they had invented, which causes aerobic exer-cise using a Neuromuscular electrical stimulation exercise (NMes). these experiments were carried out on a parabolic flight to determine whether the device was suitable for use by astro-nauts in space.

it had previously been thought im-possible to produce an aerobic exer-cise effect using a muscle stimulation device, but Principal investigator, dr brian Caulfield, explains that this is ex-actly what the team did.

“we have developed a new form of delivering the electric current into the tissues, which is called multi-path stim-ulation. it involves using very complex pulse shapes and pulse pathways deliv-ered via an array of electrodes rather than the standard approach to stimula-tion, which is to use pairs of electrodes and very simple pulse shapes. we also don’t tighten the muscle and hold it, we pulse the muscle, tighten and let it go a few times per second. doing that causes a demand for oxygen, and the only way you can get more oxygen to the muscle is your heart pumping more blood to the muscle, like it would be if you were walking on a treadmill – by doing this, we have been able to mimic aerobic exercise.”

the device, made with the galway-based company, bio-Medical research, was not originally intended for astro-nauts, “we didn’t develop this technique for astronauts, there’s a very small number of astronauts in the world, in

the grand scheme of things they’re not that important; this was developed to meet a healthcare and societal need. there’s a very large number of people out there who are sick because they don’t exercise, there are conversely a large number of people who cannot ex-ercise because they are sick … for exam-ple people with arthritis who can’t do weight-bearing exercises ... astronauts fall into the category of people who can’t exercise – when they’re in space they can’t exercise due to zero gravity.”

Masters student involved with the project, Lorenza Cafolla, explained that the testing during the week was carried out “to see whether it would be any use for anti-gravity projects and potentially in the international space station for astronauts in space to give them a modality of exercise rather than shifting up heavy machinery like a treadmill or the bicycles in the gym, this stuff is really bulky and space is at a premium up there.”

the next stage in the project may be either another set of parabolic flights to refine the experiment set-up and have the subject strapped standing up in-stead of sitting down. after that, a bed-rest study is expected to be carried out as it will enable the researchers to un-derstand how people react to long-term zero gravity. according to dr Caulfield, “bed-rest is not a million miles from what zero-gravity does to you – [you] don’t have the gradience of pressure on different parts of your posture and no loading on your boning structure.”

the project started in 2006 and pro-viding it passes all further tests, will be expected to go up to the international space station in two to three years.

by Katie HugHes · News editor

the european investment bank (eib) will fund the development of six build-ings on uCd campus, including the sutherland school of Law, the science Centre and student accommodation, as a part of its aim to support ireland’s knowledge economy.

this announcement of the €90 mil-lion investment comes following news that the government would no longer be supporting the developments due to a scaling back in exchequer funding.

according to a university spokesper-son, the aim of the uCd Campus devel-opment Plan 2010-2015 is to “make the campus more compact, concentrating related activities and separating aca-

demic and leisure functions. the overall redevelopment aims to consolidate and enhance this position of pre-eminence by providing future generations with a sustainable, healthy, and living campus.”

uCd President, Hugh brady, in-sists that the agreement with eib will strengthen uCd’s position in the euro-pean university rankings, “the cutting edge teaching, research and student support facilities which this partner-ship with the eib will enable will en-sure that uCd consolidates and en-hances its position at the top table of european universities.”

a university spokesperson echoed these sentiments, saying that the “de-velopment of the campus follows euro-pean efforts to increase investment in

research and higher education, and will strengthen uCd’s role in an increasing-ly competitive academic environment. the ability to locate both industry and academia on the same campus will help increase links between the university and key irish companies. the new cam-pus development combines refurbish-ment of existing award-winning build-ings and provision of new facilities.”

a variety of environmental initia-tives to enhance working conditions at uCd and reduce the impact that 2,000 staff and 24,500 students on campus have on the environment will be im-plemented as part of the development. among these are an energy efficient design of the science Centre and a “co-ordinated and sustainable commuting,

parking and transport regime.”eib Vice-President for ireland,

Plutarchos sakellaris, stated that the reason behind the eib providing the funding was that “the european in-vestment bank is committed to en-suring that world class education and research facilities can help future gen-erations contribute to the european knowledge economy. redevelopment of university College dublin will benefit students studying on a modern, vibrant and sustainable campus and foster a greater contribution to ireland and eu-rope as a whole.”

uCd Vice-President for Finance, gerry o’brien, and Plutarchos sakel-laris recently signed the agreement in uCd.

iNterNatioNalNews

iN Briefby JasoN QuigLey & NiaMH eMMett

£1m engineering Prize announced in uK

the Queen elizabeth engineering Prize was announced on November 17th at London’s science Museum. the ceremony announcing the £1 million prize was attended by Prime Minister david Cameron, deputy Prime Minis-ter Nick Clegg, and Leader of the oppo-sition edward Milliband.

Prime Minister david Cameron ex-pressed delight at the Queen putting her name to the prize, which he hopes “will carry the same stature as the No-bel Prizes”.

the prize, which is not exclusively for uK citizens, will be awarded every two years for “a groundbreaking ad-vance in engineering which has created significant benefit to humanity”. Presi-dent of the royal academy of engineer-ing, Lord browne, will chair the award-ing trust.

dean of the uCd school of engi-neering and architecture, Professor gerry byrne remarked on the signifi-cance of the prize, stating that it repre-sented a “development in the effort to raise the profile of engineering in soci-ety. engineering is the leading driver in the development of modern tech-nologies which enhances the quality of people’s lives daily … this prize is enor-mously significant and a tremendous step forward”.

Vaccines stored improperly in uCLa

due to a slightly outdated accounting system, the university of british Co-lumbia can only allow the formation of fifteen more societies before they hit their maximum capacity.

the system currently has a capacity for 999 accounts, only 400 of which are reserved for student societies. to make room for new ventures, the accounts of old and inactive societies are being fro-zen. this year these included, among others, the Canadian afghanistan Part-nership Club and the ubC green Party.

the introduction of an entirely new system would cost between $20,000 and $40,000 and would be cause to re-train the entire staff according to soci-eties and Clubs (saC) Vice-Chair alan-nah Johnson.

aMs President, Jeremy Mcelroy stated that “we feel that with more than 360 clubs right now, all of the club office and lockers accounted for, and our already overworked administrative staff, any significant increase in the number of clubs is next to impossible”.

the sub, where the various clubs and societies are located, is also lack-ing in space, having been built in 1968 when the university was much smaller and had fewer groups to accommodate.

uC davis to pay pepper-sprayed students’

medical costsstudents from the university of Cali-fornia davis partaking in a peaceful sit-down protest as a part of the oc-cupy wall street movement on Novem-ber 18th were pepper sprayed at close range by a police officer in an attempt to break up the protest.

the police officer’s reaction to the peaceful protest in the university of California shocked onlookers, with over a dozen videos of the encounter being uploaded to the internet within the day. uC davis has recently agreed to cover the affected students’ medical costs.

according to a student who attended the protest, “i didn’t even hear a warn-ing for the spraying, just by the students telling us all to turn around, and then we turned and we were sprayed, just like that. one of the cops was yelling at a guy saying he’s going to spray him in the face and then grabs him in the face and sprays him. they grabbed one of the protesters and sprayed it directly in his mouth. we were there peacefully, the tents were down, they had no rea-son to spray us”.

Following the actions carried out by police who were called in by uC davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, Chancellor Katehi has been called upon to resign.

uCd researchers test aerobic exercise stimulator for astronauts

Photographer: Caoimhe McDonnell

UCD Architecture degree restructuredby Katie HugHes · News editor

the architecture course in uCd is cur-rently undergoing a structural change; it will remain as a “three year – two year” programme with the first stage resulting in a bsc, while students who successfully complete the second stage will now be graduating with an March instead of a barch.

the change in the structure was made to comply with the bologna ac-cord, which proposed the structure as a standard across higher-level education.

dean of architecture, Prof. Hugh Campbell, explains the change, “all of our european partners and erasmus networks were already offering Mas-ters – it’s pretty much the standard now for a Masters [to be] in the part two. we were really just trying to position ourselves in line and give our students what they would be getting.”

one current uCd architecture student stated that they were dissatis-fied with the change, in part because they were apparently not aware of the change until after accepting their Cao offer, “anybody who began in 2010 or after will eventually have to gradu-ate with a level nine instead of a level eight but they will now have to pay for the last two years of that. it would be almost unheard of for the department of education to waive a year of fees for a level nine, so it doesn’t seem that stu-dents who accepted level eight course

places and began that course have been given any other option but to have to pay for the last two years of that.”

Prof. Campbell confirmed that the move did have fee-related implications, with the final two years now being clas-sified as “fee-paying Masters”. Howev-er, he insists that efforts are being made to make the fee a fair one, “we are still discussing it, in terms of trying make the case that at the moment five years of professional education is wholly fund-ed, why wouldn’t it continue to be the case? as you can imagine, people are not very receptive to that.”

“at the moment, we’re trying to set the fee for the Masters as fairly as we can. in terms of the university and the school, the shift from bachelors to a Masters has been financially disadvan-tageous – the fee that we would get for the barch from the block grant is big-ger than the fee that we would intend to charge for the Masters … it would be in line with what taught Masters courses [cost], there’s a six at the start of it.”

the school is currently examining the transitional aims of allowing peo-ple the opportunity to come into the Masters or to “stick with the bachelors as they’re entitled to do”.

university College Cork currently has a similar scheme in place, except with a “four year – one year” system in-stead. both Queen’s university and the university of ulster run the Masters programme under the british system.

The University Observer · 29 November 20114 News

by Katie HugHes · News editor

uCd students’ union is considering a partnership with an external company, Corathlin Ltd, to provide an accommo-dation service to uCd students.

the su currently employs an ac-commodation officer from august to october every year. the officer aids students in finding accommodation and dealing with the adjustment pe-riod.

it is proposed that Corathlin Ltd would employ the accommodation officer on a full-year basis over a long term, “they’d be there twelve months of the year and the union wouldn’t have to pay the wages, but they would be based around the student Centre and they would be there to deal with students” explains su President, Pat de brún.

the company would develop a web-site similar to existing accommodation websites, which would be geared solely at uCd students. as the service is to be

of no additional cost to uCd students, the company would generate its income from the recruitment of landlords and from advertising on the site.

the accommodation officer would still be in place to advise students, but would no longer be a direct employee of the union. de brún insists that one of the main stipulations of the deal was that the officer would assist any stu-dent with accommodation problems, regardless of who students are renting accommodation from, be it through Co-rathlin or privately.

de brún explains that, “essentially we’d work hand in hand, it’d still be the union accommodation service but it would be a partnership with an external company. the thing about it is it’s twelve months of the year, it’s there for people coming on erasmus in January and it’s there for people who have ongoing issues with their accommodation”.

He continues to say that “they will do

everything that they can to make sure that all the landlords are registered with the Private residential tenancies board (Prtb), that they’re meeting all their obligations – that they’re essen-tially meeting all best practices, so that students can be looked after. they’re also going to provide an arbitration service if there’s any disputes between landlords and students.”

de brún describes the service cur-rently in place as “a really valuable [one] and it’s one of our most used and popular services so it’s something that a lot of people depend upon, a lot of traditional students but a lot of inter-national students as well. it’s like their main port of call for finding accommo-dation”.

Corathlin have stated that “we are very excited by this opportunity, which we are confident will benefit the uCd students union, the students, uCd’s brand and we are very keen to get start-ed as soon as possible”.

do you think a twenty-four hour study space is necessary?Ciaran Fagan2nd year Food science

“i think there is too much of an advantage in people going home – it’s just not a good idea, it won’t work, a twenty-four hour study space just won’t work”

Patrick rooney2nd year arts

“i think it’s a great idea actually, it just gives an area where you can study whenever you feel like. it’s not so restrictive”

Heather Coyne3rd year Law

“Not twenty-four hours no, i’d like to sleep at some stage, but coming up to ex-ams i probably would use it like thirteen to fourteen hours, but nobody could study for twenty-four hours, that’s ridiculous”

Voxpops & photographs by Jack walsh

Patrick Fitzgerald2nd year Law with History

“[students] need to get a good night’s

sleep, eat well and sleep well, and i don’t

think it’s a welcome move to encourage this concept of the

last minute rush”

Joey doheny2nd year economics & History

“it’s good because a lot of students are nocturnal anyway, so i think it would

be great in that sense”

Patricia Quirke1st year agricultural science

“i think it’s really good as it gives stu-

dents an atmosphere in which other stu-dents are studying

and so it would real-ly help with focusing

and concentration”

by Maitiú MaC seoiN

the Christmas ball took place on No-vember 24th in the student bar, in line with su ents officer stephen darcy’s plan to keep balls on campus.

darcy was pleased with the event, “it was a bad time of year because ev-erybody’s studying and everyone’s sub-mitting their assignments this week so it wasn’t as busy as i would have liked, but there was still 400 and something people there so it was grand, it was very good”.

“we had Vodafone in and they decked out the bar with giant candy canes and lights and they gave us santa hats and they had a santa going around the place. we had a snow machine in and we had Key west, an up and com-ing irish band playing, they were sup-

ported by Paul Kilgallon and myself … it was a really good night, everyone seemed to have a really good time.”

students could either pay a €3 ad-mission fee or donate a toy which would be donated to the Christmas shoebox appeal for team Hope ireland. “it’s something that i want to build on, i want to do more stuff like that for stu-dent bar gigs … it’s a nice initiative.”

Following the cancellation of last year’s Christmas ball due to heavy snow, darcy was aware from the outset that a similar situation might have occurred this year, “it’s always an awkward one, last year it snowed and we didn’t have [a ball]. the risk was always there so i planned from august that i wouldn’t be putting on a big act in case we had to cancel – i think going for the cheap and cheerful version really works out”.

the Christmas ball was the final ents event of the year, with no more acts scheduled to perform before Christmas, “we’re doing end of ex-ams Christmas parties but they’re all nightclub based and they’re starting on the 12th of december”. the events are scheduled to run every day except sun-days until the 23rd of december.

darcy’s plans for semester two are still being finalised. a big act is expect-ed for the first week and rag week is scheduled for week three, “we’ve an in-formal agreement [with tCd students’ union] that we’re going to do the rag ball, a joint one, during uCd rag week, providing our dates match and other inquiries don’t get in the way”.

wristbands, which will allow a stu-dent entry into all twenty-eight ‘Christ-mas Fest’ events, go on sale for €10.

Christmas Ball festive success

uCd accommodation office to be run by external company

Key West performing at the Christmas Ball. Photographer: Rob Manning

by eMiLy LoNgwortH

uCd students’ union Campaigns and Communications officer, brendan Lac-ey, aims to launch a campaign that will raise awareness of road safety among uCd students in the second semester, following an increase in the number of road fatalities suffered by uCd stu-dents in recent months.

Lacey described the campaign as one that was close to his heart, saying “since i took office in July, five uCd students have died, and four of those have been road deaths, and that’s very high compared to other years, not just for the numbers of deaths themselves, but the number of road deaths in par-ticular is pretty shocking”.

there will be no time limit on the campaign, “it will run for as long as it needs to … ideally we would have liked to do it before Christmas but the na-tional campaign stopped any chances of that happening”.

Lacey predicts that it will be “a very different and hopefully very impacting campaign”. He hopes that it will “make students not just aware when they’re

driving, but also when they’re cycling and walking of what the dangers are and how they can avoid them”.

although he showed enthusiasm for next year’s campaign plans, he de-scribed the National stop Fees cam-paign as taking “absolute priority” over his time so far this semester. He deemed the fees protest “a huge suc-cess”, and was equally pleased with the second day of national protests that took place on November 24th, which involved a symbolic funeral procession “representing the death of irish educa-tion” walking through dublin.

“obviously it had a far smaller turn-out than the march but it was more of a media stunt than anything, and we got great media play from it” explained Lacey. the protest got the attention of last week’s irish times and the inde-pendent, among other national media, to the satisfaction of the su and union of students in ireland.

other plans for the second semester include Lacey’s ‘mandated campaigns’ such as rainbow week, environmental week, disability awareness week and several others.

road safety Campaign scheduled for semester two

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 5

Observer Features

in order to determine the levels of student participation in uCd’s extra-curricular activities, the Uni-

versity Observer conducted a survey of uCd students. students were also of-fered the chance to make other com-ments. these comments ranged from the positive, such as “they offer you something different from the academic side, and the chance to meet and engage with people,” by Michael o’Flanagan from second year Politics, to the nega-tive, such as shannon Comiskey from second year economics who felt that

“the university can be very grey and anonymous.”

uCd is home to many different extra-curricular activities, which are in place in order to create a fun and vibrant campus. extra-curricular in-volvement can help students gain valu-able skills they would not gain through academia alone. Furthermore, a study commissioned by the university itself in 2007, authored by student advisor Colleen doyle, found that three of the leading reasons stated by uCd stu-dents for leaving the university were

“Poor sense of Community”, “unfriend-ly environment” and “didn’t know anyone/difficulty making friends”, each given by roughly 20% of their respondents. Clearly extra-curricular societies can play a key role in treating those concerns. No student can prosper in university without a healthy social life. student societies and clubs may os-tensibly be for fun, but they also serve a valuable purpose in student life.

the survey results show that 71% of students joined a society, but that only 53% of respondents have actually at-tended an event this year. Furthermore, only 27% had done so in the previous two weeks. the same questions were also asked with regards to sports clubs, where it was found that 39% of respon-dents had joined a sports club, 35% had attended at least one event and 22% had participated in the previous two weeks. the figures for active participa-tion were similar to societies, but con-siderably fewer students joined a club at the outset.

this ‘two week’ figure is likely to be the closest to the number of students who consistently participate in student societies. Combined with the society statistic, 58% of students took part in nei-ther a society nor a sports club in the last two weeks, and 7% had done both, show-ing only a small overlap between the two. of course, as with any randomised sample of two weeks there is scope for error. However, when combined with the fact that only half of respondents had attended any society event this year, it would suggest that many uCd students draw limited benefit from the society and sports club system.

Participation in other activities was also measured as a comparison. when asked whether they had attended, or planned to attend a student union or-ganised event in the current year, 65% said yes, though this number may have been inflated by the inclusion of pro-tests as “an event”, due to the su pro-test that had occurred in the same week. 80% of students said they had read a student newspaper in the last month and 27% said they had participated in an event organised by a class rep in the previous two weeks. the class rep statistic deserves some special note, as for most of the faculties we surveyed the figure was in the 30%-50% range, but the arts faculty was unusually low, with only 9% of those surveyed responding yes. one first year science Class rep, Niall Clarke, commented that “as a class rep it’s hard to commu-nicate with the entire class, particular-ly when it’s large.” given that arts has many large classes and a low number of class reps to deal with them, this may explain the numerical disparity and this would appear to support plans by the constitutional review committee to expand the number of arts class reps.

it was found that alcohol was not a decisive factor for the majority of stu-dents in attending extra-curricular activities. when asked about whether alcohol would make them more likely to attend a particular event, 37% re-plied it they would be more likely to attend, 7% replied that they would be less likely to attend and 57% expressed

no preference. this is interesting given the perception of students often being

‘binge drinkers’ or highly influenced by alcohol.

when asked whether they perceived student societies to be “exclusive or cliquish” the result was high, at 44%. in addition, students who had partici-pated in a society in the previous two weeks were as likely to feel societies were cliquish as the general population of students. one Commerce student commented that “some of the larger so-cieties can be quite cliquish, and i know many people who left to join smaller societies as a result.” another student, richard blanc of 3rd year History, felt new members can often be ignored by older members and given little to do, commenting that “For many of the so-cieties you have to be there for several years before you get anywhere, before that, you’re just a number.”

when asked if they “had interests or hobbies not served by a currently exist-ing society”, the student response was relatively low, with 16% of students re-sponding positively to this question. suggestions for new societies ranged from arts and Crafts, to Zoology, to Cars.

when the data was analysed further, it was found that two-week participa-tion in societies and sports clubs var-ied little with regards to the student’s year of study. However, the probability of joining or attending any society fell the longer students were in college, as shown in FIG A. another trend was that the percentage perceiving soci-eties as “exclusive or cliquish” was

55% for most years, except first years, where only 26% believed it was an is-sue. a similar analysis was performed regarding faculties and found no mean-ingful variation.

in contrast, gender did appear to have a slight affect on responses. Fe-male respondents were less likely to take part in societies than male respon-dents, while being more likely to per-ceive societies as exclusive or cliquish. However, less female students felt they had unserved interests or hobbies, and female students did not believe alcohol was as influential in choosing an event to attend as their male counterparts. the breakdown of results can be seen in FIG B. this is an interesting result with no immediately clear explanation, and perhaps warrants further investi-gation.

in comments collected from indi-vidual students, other concerns were voiced that were not specifically ad-dressed in the survey, and may have given a significant response if they had been. one of these was commuting, with sixteen students independently answering that their commute pre-vented them from taking part in extra-curricular activities in uCd, and many saying that events earlier in the day would make it substantially easier for them to take part.

the other main issue brought up by numerous students was publicity. Many commented that they encoun-tered various problems keeping them from knowing how to get involved. orla ward, a second year actuarial studies student, felt societies “don’t

have good enough contact via email af-ter the first two weeks, they’ve got your money and that’s it.” Likewise, Leanne ryan of third year english believed that “societies give too little informa-tion about how to get involved, or even what they’re doing”.

some made practical suggestions of their own of how to ameliorate pre-ex-isting issues, like Lauren Mcdunphy of fourth year Nursing. “i’d like it if there was an easier way to join societies after fresher’s week, for instance online, be-cause during fresher’s week, as a fourth year student i was very busy getting organised.” some students also felt similarly about student newspapers and responded that while they enjoyed reading it, many had little idea of how to actually get involved and write.

the University Observer contacted stephen whelan, chairman of the so-ciety Council, for comment on the re-sults. “Firstly, it is to be expected that the numbers attending society events this late in the semester is lower than usual. assignments and exams take precedence at this stage, so it is a bad time to examine attendance in a gen-eral sense. this has been the general trend since the introduction of semes-terisation a number of years ago.” Fur-thermore, he stated that many society events were not always obviously run by a society, for example faculty days. whelan also thought that “people are too quick to use the word clique. your survey suggests that over 70% of stu-dents joined a society this year, i think this is positive. First year students are always more willing to be involved, or

try new things, than other years. as people progress in college they tend to specialise. so instead of joining ten so-cieties, they join one or two,” and “so-cieties want people to be involved. at any stage during the year you can join a society, and they’ll be happy to have you. i think the ‘clique’ label used is not helpful, and for the most part, ill-considered.” He concluded that, “with over eighty active societies here on campus we have a great deal of diver-sity ... obviously, it would be foolish to be complacent. the societies Council will continue to encourage participa-tion and promote society life here on campus.”

this survey shows that there is a sig-nificant number of students that are not taking part in extra-curricular activi-ties. it should be stressed, however, that most of the student respondents were positive about student societies and felt they were an important part of the uni-versity. the main issues we found stu-dents expressing that kept them from participating were not related to a lack of resources on the part of the univer-sity, but due to poor infrastructure and communication. students were not tak-ing part due to events being too late, not being informed of any events, or simply not knowing how to volunteer.

Perhaps there are more problems to be solved, however the survey is al-ready beneficial insofar as it highlights that even an improvement in the fre-quency and timing of email communi-cation would create a greater connec-tion between societies and students and invite greater participation.

Following the moratorium on new societies, Jason Quigley takes to the concourse to gauge student participation

surveying the Crowd

Joined a society

attended any society event

2 weeks

Join a sports club

2 weeks

read student newspaper

thinks societies are cliq

uish

Has unserved interests

attended a sp

orts club

1st year

2nd year

3rd year

4th year

Post-gra

d

overall

FIG A

FIG B

FIG C

The University Observer · 29 November 20116 feaTUres

the effect of the global financial crisis on europe has been sweep-ing and widespread. it has taken

down governments in italy and greece, led to brutal austerity measures across peripheral countries like ireland and spain, and even ushered in a new eu-rosceptic sentiment in many states. at-tempting to predict an outcome of the crisis seems almost futile given its in-herent complications, but the question that is preoccupying the minds of poli-ticians, bankers, economists, investors and citizens now relates squarely to the fate of the common currency.

to ask whether the euro will still exist as a currency in any recogni-sable form in a few years is essen-tial. However, it is inaccurately being misrepresented by many as an issue of countries either exiting the currency of their own choice, or being forced out for threatening other countries within the eu-rozone, such as the theo-rised greek expulsion were it to have rejected the bailout program in a referendum. “it’s re-ally neither of those,” explains Karl whelan, a monetary economist and uCd professor. “it’s events, my dear boy, that cause all the trouble.” He comments on how the shakiest part of the house of cards is italy’s high levels of debt, and the fear amongst many is that it will have to default on these debts, refusing to pay back any inves-tors holding bonds (a government guarantee promising the holder a set payment on a maturity date).

yields on italian bonds, the interest rate investors demand and an indicator of perceived risk, recently passed the seven per cent rate. this was the rate of risk that was deemed to warrant the greek and irish bailouts. at that point the cost of borrowing becomes unsus-tainable. “if the italian government was faced with a potential default, which could have knock-on effects for italian banks and banks in the rest of europe, it’s quite possible that that could lead to some version of the end of the euro,” w h e l a n says. this possibil it y has become easier to i m a g i n e , with Nico-las sarkozy and an-gela Merkel a g r e e i n g in a recent meeting with new italian PM Mario Monti that an italian default would mean the end of the euro. whelan

explains how this would hy-pothetically pan out. “that could lead to the ital-ians reintroduc-ing their own cur-rency, and using that currency to finance the gov-ernment to avoid a default. it could be called a default in the sense that [ b o n d h o l d e r s] won’t be paid eu-ros, but they’ll be paid something”. banks and states across europe holding italian

debt will be seriously hit, causing a huge risk of contagion.

italy is seen as the focal point purely due to its economic heft within europe. as whelan puts it, “while you could maybe imagine some version of the euro without greece … it’s pretty hard to imagine a version of the euro with-out major european countries like ita-ly.” rather, a greek exit poses a threat by proving that the currency area is not a fixed set of states but instead one that may be left by its members. “if they were to leave, that would lead people to ask the question, where next?” whelan remarks. were investors and deposi-tors in a nation’s banks to start antici-pating that their savings will cease to be euros and soon be some other less valuable currency, funds will be taken out in a run that could hollow out the financial system, leaving it with debts

owed and no currency to back it up. it’s a similar pattern to what happened to the likes of Lehman brothers in 2008, but at a much more severe level.

there is an economic logic behind the desire for the end of the currency. Having control of your own currency can be an effective way for a state to ease the impact of the

b o o m and bust cycle. by devalu-ing your currency (usu-ally by printing more or adjusting in-terest rates to influence demand), you can make your labour and resources relatively cheaper compared to your competitor countries, encouraging

investment in your own country to help you out of a recessionary period. Frank walsh, a labour economist and uCd professor, points out that the lack of this possibility leads to a situ-ation where wage cuts often need to occur, and explains that the effect of

“the absence of monetary policy is that you have to have these internal devalu-ations, and that makes it painful for us”. this is best seen in the ongoing struggle over attempts to cut wages as part of austerity measures across europe. on the other hand, monetary policy can be used in times of booms to help reign in unchecked growth and speculative bubbles. effectively, there is a prescribed way to control your cur-rency given your economic standing at any time.

thus, when this currency control was relinquished from sovereign states to overall authority of the european Central bank (eCb), it meant that there was one set policy for all of eu-rope. given a situation such as the one we’re currently in, where some coun-tries lag behind while others grow, this is hugely problematic. any policy will have beneficial effects in one country and adverse effects in another. it’s why ireland historically tied its currency to britain without much trouble, as the two economies were linked heavily by trade and followed similar patterns of growth and recessions. walsh gives the examples of France and germany suf-fering economically during our Celtic tiger, as well as the opposite occurring now.

the benefits of having one’s own currency may seem appealing, but not enough to warrant the potentially cata-strophic effects of the exit. “you can debate whether it was a mistake for ire-land to join,” whelan says. “but i don’t

think anybody should be thinking that a scenario in which the euro breaks up and ireland establishes its own curren-cy is going to be fun.” He believes that a hypothetical exit by any country would be “extremely disruptive at a european and at a global level”, even saying that

“it would likely trigger a financial crisis

and global econom-

ic cri-sis

t h a t w o u l d

be bigger than the Lehm-

an’s crisis.” it demon-strates that focusing on benefits to us such as competitive devaluation, or having our debt to the eCb written off, would probably be small good points in an overall tragedy.

right now a short-term solution needs to be found to prevent a sud-den, uncontrolled detonation of the eurozone before a long term solution can be considered. both whelan and walsh forsee a monetization of sov-ereign debt, where the eCb prints off money to buy government bonds. it’s a programme that has been rolled out in the uK and the usa under the jar-gonic auspices of ‘Quantitative easing’. walsh says one of the reasons this is most likely is that it avoids the politi-cal deadlock of arranging a default or establishing eurobonds, a debt secu-rity backed collectively by all of the eurozone. were it even politically pos-sible, it’s now not even certain that the bonds will sell, given that germany, usually the international standard for bond stability, struggled to sell newly issued ten-year bonds last week. “you don’t have to go around to the ger-man parliament and all the others and get them to vote for anything,” walsh explains. “Mario draghi [governor of the eCb] can just roll up the printing press and start printing.”

whelan also sees this as the most likely occurrence. “i suspect that what would have to be done to pre-vent [the collapse of the common cur-rency] would be some version of the eCb printing lots of money [to pur-chase bonds].” the only obstacle to implementation seems to be the ger-man government under angela Merkel. Printing off large amounts of money runs the risk of inflation, something the german nation is notoriously vigi-lant about as they live with a flawed historical narrative where hyperinfla-tion in the weimar republic created the instability that brought Hitler to power. of course, the quantitative eas-ing programmes rolled out in the us

and uK have yet to show any sign of causing inflation to any worrying de-gree. even in ireland’s case, it would not be wholly problematic, as walsh points out. “one of the negative sides of inflation is that it’s bad for savers and good for borrowers, but ireland with a little bit of inflation that deval-ues people’s debts mightn’t be such a bad thing.”

Contrasting default with monetiza-tion results in little distinction. they both impose costs, a default imposing them on bondholders, and monetiza-tion potentially placing them on any-

one holding euros by devaluing the currency.

as to a long-term means of preventing a similar crisis reoc-

curring, there are a range of op-tions of varying degrees of se-verity. the most radical one

is a fiscal union of some sort, where sovereign states begin to have their bud-get supervised, approved, possibly even managed by the eurozone to co-ordinate fiscal policy, as well as guaranteeing that no country ends up in the debt levels that greece or ireland managed to.

“i suspect there will be repercussions whereby germans and other coun-tries in the euro will say

‘we did this once, but we’re only going to stick with the

euro now if there is some greater form of fiscal monitor-

ing’,” whelan says.the fiscal union would cer-

tainly follow the pattern of re-sponse to previous crises in the eu

with further and further integration, but the political opposition to such an intrusion of sovereignty is likely to be vehement. even on an economic front, walsh points out that having such a programme would be disastrous in cases of unmatched cyclical patterns across countries unless a us style transfers system, wherein states with surpluses finance those with deficits directly, was implemented. at that point, the Monetary union would have all the features of a state in its econom-ic policy.

t h e other hypo-thetical out-come that has been suggested is much more u n u s u a l .

“there is one s c e n a r i o in which, let’s say

germany and a couple of like-minded countries, decide to leave the euro and set up a new currency,” whelan says.

“there are all sorts of legal issues to do with that that make that complicated, but that could be done.” the situation that leaves us in would be little better though, with any countries left in the

‘old euro’ seen as too risky to invest or even keep wealth in, and it is not being viewed as a realistic possibility.

given all this, the breakup of the currency looks like it needs to be taken seriously as a possibility. it could be seen as the bring-er of a dark mis-erable future, but whelan offers to put it in some per-spective. “ulti-mately, the world has survived the great depression, the world has sur-vived the second world war. the end of the euro, if it were to happen, would probably be a pretty big economic disas-ter, but at the end of the day, we’d survive.” He adds that “we have some notion of what a europe with fifteen dif-ferent currencies looks like; if we look back fifteen or twenty years we can see such a world. it can work. the mistake was probably to abandon it in the first place and assume that such a large economic area could work with a single currency.”

With the financial crisis showing little sign of abating, Cormac Duffy looks at

the future prospects of the Euro

“I DOn’T ThInk anybODy ShOUlD bE

ThInkIng ThaT a SCEnaRIO In whICh

ThE EURO bREakS UP anD IRElanD ESTablIShES ITS

Own CURREnCy IS gOIng TO bE FUn.”

KarL wHeLaN, uCd eCoNoMiCs

ProFessor

“OnE OF ThE nEgaTIvE SIDES OF InFlaTIOn IS ThaT IT’S baD FOR SavERS anD gOOD FOR bORROwERS, bUT IRElanD wITh a lITTlE bIT OF InFlaTIOn ThaT DEvalUES PEOPlE’S DEbTS MIghTn’T bE SUCh a baD ThIng.”

FraNK waLsH, uCd eCoNoMiCs LeCturer

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 7feaTUres

Mianach Óir Grinn nó Paráid na nGealt?

sna stáit aontaithe, tá an troid don ainmniúchán Poblachtach sa toghchán uachtaránachta seo

chugainn faoi lán seoil sa nuacht. bhí 11 díospóireacht teilifíse go fóill, cé go bh-fuil naoi mí fágtha fós sula roghnóidh an Páirtí Poblachtach a n-iarrthóir don toghchán féin, bliain mhór fhada ó in-niu.

ar dtús, tá cuma ar an scéal go bh-fuil seans iontach ag na Poblachtaigh an uachtaránacht a bhaint de na da-onlathaigh. Níl an ráta sástachta ag uachtarán obama ach thartfá 40%. tá an geilleagar fós ag streachailt, agus tá pairilis ar an Chomhdháil i ndiaidh na dtoghchán lán téarma bliain ó shin, a thug cumhacht do na Poblachtaigh i dteach na nionadaithe.

shílfeá go mbeadh fonn athraithe ar mhuintir Mheiriceá, agus mar go bhfuil córas dhá pháirtí i bhfeidhm, thairgfeadh na Poblachtaigh an t-athrú sin. ach tá na hiarrthóirí ag na Poblachtaigh chomh antoisceach agus chomh dona, tá seans go mbeidh an bua ag obama a los éagmaise. dúirt

Pat robertson fiú, soiscéalaí teilifíse conspóideach, go bhfuil na hiarrthóirí Poblachtacha ró-antoisceach leis an olltoghchán a bhaint. bíonn rudaí aisteacha ag tarlú sna díospóireachtaí féin; rinne lucht féachana faíreach faoi saighdiúirí aeracha agus daoine bochta a bhfuil tinneas orthu, ach lig siad gáir mholta faoi bhásuithe i dtexas, gan trácht ar ráitis aite na n-iarrthóirí féin.

agus cé hiad na hiarrthóirí sin? is é Mitt romney, iar-ghobhanóir Mas-sachusetts, rogha na coitiantachta. tháinig sé sa dara háit sa rás Po-blachtach i 2008 i ndiaidh John Mc-Cain. ag an am, smaoiníodh go raibh romney níos coimeádaí ná McCain; ach anois, is é an rogha is réasúnta.

Níl gnaoi ag mórán Poblachtach ar romney áfach. tá dhá phríomhfháth le seo. ar dtús, bhí roinnt polasaithe lio-brálacha aige nuair a bhí sé ina ghob-harnóir Massachusetts, a chlár chúram sláinte sa stát ach go háirithe. bhí an clár seo an-chosúil le clár obama, a bhfuil fuath láidir ag Poblachtaigh air. tá romney ag maíomh anois go bhfuil

sé in éadan cláir atá beagnach mar an gcéanna lena chlár féin ar an ardán náisiúnta, agus é ag déanamh iarracht vótaí a fháil ó vótálaithe níos coimeádaí ná toghthóirí Massachusetts.

Mar gheall ar a sheasaimh nea-mhsheasmhach ar shaincheisteanna do Phoblachtaigh, deirtear gur Po-blachtach san ainm amháin é romney. Chomh maith leis seo, is Mormannach é, creideamh a shílfear mar chultas ag mórán Críostaithe coimeádacha. Mar gheall ar an drochmhuinín atá ag a lán Poblachtach as romney, ní fhaigheann sé níos mó ná 25% sna pobalbhreithe-anna. ach tá an tacaíocht aige sea-smhach, rud nach bhfuil ag iarrthóir ar bith eile.

tháinig ceithre iarrthóir chun to-saigh mar phríomhchéile comhraic ag romney le linn an fheachtais go fóill, ach arís agus arís eile, bíonn a seans scriosta go han-ghasta nuair a thugann siad chun solais. ar dtús ba í Michele bachmann a bhí chun tosaigh, ach laghdaigh a cuid tacaíochta i ndiaidh roinnt ráiteas conspóideach. Mhaígh

sí gur chúis é an vacsaín do phapaló-maivíreas daonna le moilliú intinne i gcailíní óga. dhiúltaigh saineolaithe leighis dá ráiteas. Ní raibh sí in ann cuimhneamh ar roinnt fíricí stairiúla chomh maith, agus bhí a ráitis ró-an-toisceach fiú i measc na bPoblachtach.

ba é rick Perry, gobharnóir texas, an chéad duine eile a bhí chun tosaigh. ach tá scileanna óráide in easnamh air. i gcomparáid le Perry, shílfeá go raibh líofacht san óráid ag a réamhtheachtaí mar ghobharnóir texas, george w. bush. bhí cuma ar an scéal go raibh Perry ólta ar ardán ag imeacht in New

Hampshire. agus i ndiaidh botúin mhóir i ndíospóireacht i Michigan, nuair a rinne sé dearmad ar ranna ri-altais a chuirfeadh sé deireadh leis mar uachtarán, tá cuma ar an scéal go bh-fuil a fheachtas millte.

ba é Herman Cain an chéad iarrthóir eile a thug dúshlán do romney. is cosúil go bhfuil bród air as an easpa eolais atá aige ar chúrsaí thar sáile. dhearbhaigh sé in agallamh gur cuma leis cé hé uachtarán ‘ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan’, agus in agallamh eile streachail sé le ceist simplí ar chúrsaí na Libia. ach an rud a rinne an dochar is mó dá fheachtas ná na socraíochtaí a d’íoc sé do mhná mar gheall ar éil-imh gnéaschiaptha sna 1990í, nuair a bhí Cain i gceannas ar Chomhlachas Náisiúnta na mbialann. anois, tá Newt gingrich ag ardú sna pobalbhreithean-na, in ainneoin a chuid conspóidí féin, íocaíochtaí ó Freddie Mac agus caid-rimh suirí ina measc.

tá triúr eile fágtha, ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, agus rick santorum. tá tuairimí seasmhacha ag Paul. tá sé in aghaidh rialú rialtais, mar aon le Po-blachtaigh go ginearálta, ach níl mórán tacaíochta dá pholasaithe eachtracha agus dá pholasaithe maidir le drugaí i measc thromlach na bPoblachtach. Ní aontaíonn sé le coiriúlú na ndrugaí, agus tá sé i gcoinne idirghabhála mí-leata, polasaithe sainiúla i measc na n-iarrthóirí.

tá Huntsman cosúil le romney. is Mormannach é, agus síltear go bhfuil sé réasúnta. iar-ambasadóir Mheiriceá sa tsín, tá sínis líofa aige, rud nach raibh ag uachtarán ar bith go fóill. tá Huntsman go han-íseal sna pobalbh-reiteanna, áfach, cosúlacht atá aige le santorum.

tá sé an-deacair buaiteoir a roghnú faoi láthair. tosóidh na toghcháin to-saigh iad féin i Mí eanáir, leis an chácas in iowa. ach leis an ghráscar iarrthóirí, an mbronnfaidh na Poblachtaigh an uachtaránacht ar obama arís an bhli-ain seo chugainn?

agus ár nuachtarán féin insealbhaithe againn le déanaí, tá toghchán uachtaránachta eile go mór i mbéal an phobail. déanann Niall Mac Taidhg cíoradh ar an rás Poblachtach don ainmniúchán uachtaránachta i Meiriceá agus breathnaíonn sé ar na príomhiarrthóirí.

Verona is a quiet town in winter, when the flow of coach tourists stems until next spring. i first ar-

rived two months ago to unexpected heat and with a broken suitcase. the plan was to meet a friend at Ponte Pi-etra, the edge of the historical centre, forty minutes from the station. with two hours sleep, i hauled my ridiculous suitcase across town, too disorientated to consider removing my coat from a cold morning at dublin airport. i had no idea where i was staying that night. it turned out it would be a castle, on a beautiful hill that overlooks the town. unfortunately, the castle was in ruins and i was staying in a tent; not exactly the lap of luxury that i had perhaps had in mind.

we made the campsite on the castle our home. dining al fresco on sunny evenings, bottle of wine in hand and listening to whatever albums the own-ers put on. this was La dolce Vita. it lasted a week. on the last day of sep-tember we were informed that the campsite would be closed. “why?” we asked, dismayed at the thought of leav-ing. “it will get too cold”, was the reply, while the outside temperature was still thirty degrees. thoughts of how cold it was at electric Picnic one month before came to mind as i packed, disgruntled that the honeymoon had ended already.

Househunting in italy, like any-where else, is a nightmare. it is worse when you can’t speak italian, immedi-ately striking out most adverts on walls

and online letting sites. after a few days of trying in vain with the above, we decided to head to an estate agent, and unfortunately, our choice of agent was dubious at best. at first she was friendly, but as we started getting into business her inefficiency became obvi-ous. what was an apartment that we could move into by the end of the week was an apartment that we could move into by the middle of the next week and so on. in a stupid move, we had hand-ed over one hundred euro up front as a deposit of some sort. with nowhere to stay, i questioned her on what was taking so long. i was met with a fiery temper in an instant, and she screamed italian at a much higher pitch than was appreciated. we didn’t take the apart-ment. she smirked when i asked for the money back.

Verona is ideal for three-day tour-ists. it has pretty little streets with plenty of cafes, historic buildings dating back to the roman era and of course Casa di giulietta, whose statue has been groped by more tourists in a day than Molly Malone endures in a year. beyond this prettiness however, the town of the world’s most famous lovers has the shallowness evident in all tourist regions. once the tourists go to bed, the town sleeps. apart from a thriving campus bar, the nightlife here cannot compare to my reminisces of dublin pubs. after a month, i felt i had discovered everything of interest. My expectations seldom meet reality. Here

they crumbled, until one weekend when i wound up at the train station. the departures board read Paris 13:40, Munchen 14:10, roma, Milano, Venezia, innsbruck. Verona may be small but its station opened up the whole of central europe.

First on the map was Milan. we missed the early morning train from Verona, but we still got there in plenty of time. when we missed the last train home, that mattered. with the station closed throughout the night, we turned to a dodgy cafe for coffee, but mostly for warmth. we left amid an extor-tionate bill for three coffees, the boss attempting to lock us in, and a hurling of insults. worst of all, it was still three hours until the station opened. Luckily there was a hotel lobby nearby where we attempted to sleep until a gang of loud italians came roaring through the door. the staff had finished for the night and they had seen us. instead of kicking us out, we were treated to wine, food and a surprise party. this was the other side of italians.

although it is winter, the cold hasn’t fully kicked in as of yet. this is fortu-nate, as the electricity has been off since last night and, through the half light, i am waiting for the electrician. in italy nothing runs like clockwork and if you expect it to, frustration mounts. the best way to get through the unexpectedness is to join the ital-ians at the bar, spritz in hand, through their glorious three hour lunch break.

Postcards from Abroad: Veronawith winter just around the corner, Sean Finnan takes advantage of Verona’s travel opportunities

gluais:Teach na nIonadaithe ...................................... House of Representativesfaíreach .............................................................................................. catcallingbásuithe ............................................................................................. executionsrogha na coitiantachta .......................................................... hot favouritepapalómaivíreas daonna ........................................ human papillomaviruséilimh gnéaschiaptha ................................... sexual harassment claimscoiriúlú .................................................................................... criminalisationidirghabháil mhíleata .......................................... military intervention

 

It has pretty little streets with plenty of cafés, historic buildings dating back to the Roman era and of course Casa di Giulietta, whose statue has been groped by more tourists in a day than Molly Malone endures in a year

The University Observer · 29 November 20118 feaTUres

New york. Chicago. Los angeles. as students approach the end of the year, many are planning

their upcoming summers and the exciting experiences which will no doubt be had on a J1 trip to america. talk to any student who has done a J1 and you’ll hear tales of good times. these adventures often include stories of irish students getting a tad too excited. on the low end of things, anecdotes include excessive partying; on the higher end, examples of more anti-social behaviour and aggressive activities which placed students in risky situations.

“there were issues this year of students putting stickers onto their passports,” according to sheila daly of usit dublin. “somebody had a little enterprise going where they were selling stickers, a laminate, so students gave a copy of their passport and they took copies of it and changed the date of birth and made a sticker that went over the bio page which looked extremely real but in some cases police found out, it got leaked and certain bouncers and pubs and clubs found out. if you lifted the passport to the light, you can see the hologram with the passport, and with these you couldn’t so they were confiscating passports,” added daly. illegal? definitely. brilliant? Maybe. Certainly this trick is not to be recommended. However, more and more reports emerging from the united states indicate that it is not only students who may be attempting to work around the law.

this past year 400 students believed that they would be working for a major american producer of chocolate, Hershey’s, america’s answer to Cadbury’s or Nestle. However, they soon found themselves as employees of the temporary staffing agency sHs, contracted through a company called exel on behalf of Hershey’s, working incredibly long hours under extremely physically taxing conditions in a chocolate packing factory.

stephen boykewich represents an american organisation called the National guestworkers alliance, which assists foreign guestworkers. the organisation was founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when many guestworkers were recruited to assist in the rebuilding of New orleans.

“these students were forced to work at extraordinary rates of productivity

- 120%, 125% of plant capacity. in the process, they were suffering a whole huge range of physical ailments, from chronic fatigue to shooting pains, bruises up and down their arms and legs, they were doing heavy repetitive lifting for eight hours at a time, unable to sleep, and any concerns they raised were met with threats of retaliation or deportation,” said boykewich.

“the most important thing to understand is that the J1 visa program is not a guestworker visa program. it was not created to be a guestworker program, it’s not administrated by the department of Labor, but by the department of state, and of course on the face of it, it makes no sense that the department of state would be administering a guestworker program. it’s not equipped to, it shouldn’t be able to. the J1 program was founded in 1961, where by providing opportunities for cultural exchange, it promised young people from other countries

the opportunity to come to the united states and meet americans and return to their home countries as cultural ambassadors. what has happened over the last decade is that the J1 program has been exploited by us employers of all kinds to turn it from a cultural exchange program into the largest unregulated guestworker program in america.”

these students eventually spoke out about the abuses that they faced, which led to secretary of state Hilary Clinton issuing a moratorium on applications of new employers to be recognised as eligible J1 employers while internal reviews of the program were conducted. in a press release, saket soni, the executive director of the National guestworker alliance, stated that “we can see from state’s decision that they found serious problems with the J1 visa program, which has effectively become the largest unregulated guestworker program in america. the deception, exploitation, and threats that the 400 student workers at the Hershey’s packing plant faced aren’t the exception in the J1 program; they’re the rule.”

susie Mcevoy, fourth year international social science, participated in the J1 program last summer in Montauk, New york. “i ended up getting a job in a market, a shop, sort of the equivalent to donnybrook Fair. i was doing seven o’clock to seven o’clock ... working sixty hours a week. i was making rent, but that was about it, i’d have little money left over.”

other students faced similar difficulties. Fourth year Law student Jane McCann worked in wildwood, New Jersey at a company which provided dolphin and whale-watching tours and explained that she “worked for twenty-eight days straight, seven until seven.” Clare Nagle, fourth year business and Law, also worked with Jane. Clare worked an “average of seventy hours per week ... there were a

couple of weeks in the beginning where it was slower, and then in the middle of the season, it was seventy-hour weeks.”

Certainly there is nothing wrong with a strong work ethic and being able to work long weekly hours. However, a major part of the issue is that under

american labour law, any hours worked by any worker which exceed eight hours a day and forty hours a week require the employer to pay overtime. yet in the case of Clare and Jane, no overtime was paid, and in the case of susie, she was paid overtime pay in cash. this allowed the employer to not pay taxes on the overtime pay; thus, the employers were able to skirt the law and exploit their labour. additionally, they were often paid their basic wage in cash and the fact that the employers had them work these hours also put the full-time american workers at a disadvantage.

“they did it in a way that they’d pay us overtime in cash because they didn’t want to pay tax on our overtime. which was fine for me, but then they close for three or four months of the year and the full-time workers get half the unemployment benefits that they would be getting if everything was done above board because the government thinks they are working only half the hours that they are. For me, it didn’t make much of a difference, because i get it in cash. but for full-time workers, it was a big issue,” said susie. “they have such a huge amount of people coming over that they know they can replace us. My employer told me that ‘when irish people were poor, they’d do whatever we asked them to. Now you’re more picky’.”

attempts to take advantage of students is not limited to the workplace; many landlords are also increasingly doing so, either packing students into places or offering rentals which tenants would not normally accept. “the house was disgusting, it was an absolute kip. we didn’t have hot water for a month and i’m pretty sure it had black mould as well,” Clare said. susie describes her living situation: “we had people in our living room. we had a pull-out couch that we had at least two people in the living room, if not three people. we had another two or three people in the garage. we had another four people in my bedroom, three people in another, three people in another...the landlord collected $800 a month from each of us, and there were thirteen of us in a three bedroom house.”

still, the J1 program provides

excellent opportunities for many and, when asked if she would participate in it again, susie said, “i would do it again, no questions asked. it was one of the best summers ever.” Clare also stated that she would also go again, but offered advice to students. “we

didn’t have enough time off work to travel. if i was going again i’d work less, have more fun, and go travelling at the end so i could get the fun out of the place where i was. if you’re going with your friends, get jobs in different places because if not, it’s really difficult to do anything because on your day off there’s no one else off. be careful of your housing. they think because you’re a) under twenty-five, b) irish, and c) on your J1 that you don’t care about what you live in.”

both daly and boykewich stressed the importance of researching accommodation and employers before travelling to america. “we advise everybody to do research before they go. it’s the biggest thing. we recommend certain websites where people can find work or accommodation but we always advise people, for example Craigslist

... you’ll find that there are thousands of legitimate employers and people renting accommodation on there, but you get the people who are dodgy as well,” daly said.

boykewich added, “do the research. understand every single point of whatever job offer, whatever documentation you are given. Very often, students are given job offers that will sketch out situations including some of the numbers but then are told a very different story by the sponsors. you want to be very, very clear what your economic reality is going to be and ask sponsors all the hard questions, things that are not laid out in the contract.”

a summer trip to america on a J1 can be a fantastic experience but make sure that you are well-organised in order to not be taken advantage of. daly added a final note for uCd students considering a J1. “Not everybody has the best experience, some people can go out with unrealistic expectations, but for the most part we do a survey every year and 99.9% of people have the most amazing summer of their lives. Personally i had a green card, i got one of those donnelly visas years ago so i went off to the states and did my time over there. it’s a rite of passage, it’s an amazing experience. Literally, you grow up, you learn about the big bad world. and it’s great to have on a CV.”

with applications for 2012 J1 Visas recently opening, Nicholas Lawrie explores some potential pitfalls facing irish students

“wE Can SEE FROM STaTE’S DECISIOn

ThaT ThEy FOUnD SERIOUS PROblEMS

wITh ThE J1 vISa PROgRaM, whICh haS EFFECTIvEly

bECOME ThE laRgEST

UnREgUlaTED gUESTwORkER

PROgRaM In aMERICa. ThE

DECEPTIOn, ExPlOITaTIOn, anD

ThREaTS ThaT ThE 400 STUDEnT

wORkERS aT ThE hERShEy’S PaCkIng PlanT

FaCED aREn’T ThE ExCEPTIOn In

ThE J1 PROgRaM; ThEy’RE ThE RUlE”

saKet soNi, exeCutiVe direCtor

oF tHe NatioNaL guestworKer

aLLiaNCe

“ThEy havE SUCh a hUgE aMOUnT

OF PEOPlE COMIng OvER ThaT ThEy knOw ThEy Can

REPlaCE US. My EMPlOyER TOlD ME ThaT ‘whEn

IRISh PEOPlE wERE POOR, ThEy’D DO

whaTEvER wE aSkED ThEM TO.

nOw yOU’RE MORE PICky’”

susie MCeVoy, FourtH year

iNterNatioNaL soCiaL sCieNCe

“nOT EvERybODy haS ThE bEST Ex-PERIEnCE, SOME

PEOPlE Can gO OUT wITh UnRE-

alISTIC ExPECTa-TIOnS, bUT FOR

ThE MOST PaRT wE DO a SURvEy

EvERy yEaR anD 99.9 PER CEnT OF

PEOPlE havE ThE MOST aMazIng

SUMMER OF ThEIR lIvES”

sHeiLa daLy,

sPoKesPersoN For usit dubLiN

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 9

“Our college year from end to end may be shorter than most in Europe, but the system will be damned if it doesn’t suck a lot of life out of us by the end of those twenty-four weeks”

“Semesterisation has divided

student life into easy to manage,

bite-sized chunks rather than world-

ending final exams”

yes. Yvanne Kennedy

opinion.are students under too much pressure?as exams loom ever closer, Yvanne Kennedy and Emer Sugrue debate whether or not Irish students are under more pressure than those studying abroad

Currently, I am sitting at a desk piled high with books and legal pads that are filled with the scrawl of hours worth of lecture notes. There is an essay due, there are exams coming up, my diary is full to the hilt and I was working all day to help finance the ‘extras’ that are cluttering its pages. Now, you may say that I have brought this all on myself and to an ex-tent I have. I am the embodiment of the ‘yes man’ philosophy - if something takes my fancy, I will apply for it, fundraise for it or oc-casionally sing for it. That’s what college is all about, right? In all honesty, that essay isn’t due for a week and the exams will be fine, but I can’t help feeling entirely overwhelmed by my sheer lack of time.

That events diary is becoming slowly lighter as I attempt to claw my way out from under that stack of books, and the daily commute is a killer - the sheer price of campus accommodation means a good four hours spent on buses damp-ens my day. Our college year from end to end may be shorter than most in Europe, but the system will be damned if it doesn’t suck a lot of life out of us by the end of those twenty-four weeks. The mix of continuous assessment and ex-ams is good in theory, but when compared to certain other juris-dictions and universities, such as those in Britain, where the exams may be plentiful but the pace is slower, pressure is on us from all sides.

The different degree lengths here and abroad also ramp up the pressure on Irish students. Many degrees and postgrads take much longer in other countries than here, meaning the same amount of material is condensed. One-year masters instead of two, and three-year bachelors instead of four, may push us out into the real world a lit-tle faster but it comes at the cost of an intense workload. The amount of time spent on initial learning, especially on a course leading di-rectly to a profession, means that a great amount is missed out on and the module choice is limited. The option to cover the same amount of material may be available but in that condensed time period, there is much less scope and I’m sure more pressure laid on to cov-er things over reduced weeks and hours.

There is, however, the added benefit in universities where the twenty-four week year is split in three, that there is a lot more time for resting between terms, a time to chill out, time to perhaps get some work experience and gen-eral time away from studying that makes it much easier when you do have to return.

Irish universities are held in very high esteem. They are some of the best universities in Europe and are the continuous recipients of various awards for research and development. This high standard is reflected both in the calibre of teaching staff they attract, but also in the standard of graduates they produce. Con-trary to some beliefs, this is not because our exams are easier or marked with a lighter touch of the pen. It is because the stand-ard we are compared to is so high and because we are worked hard to produce these results. Our lecturers undoubtedly give us lots to work with, but what they expect in return is a stand-ard of care, an attention to detail, and research that can rival any of the top universities in the world. They are not content with medi-ocrity and neither are we. How-ever, if it potentially comes at the cost of running people into the ground, where is the worth in the fantastic results if the person be-hind them is exhausted, cranky and defeated? There is none, so maybe we should start thinking about that instead of our assign-ments.

rebuttal byEmer SugrueI would disagree that pressure is placed on students because of our universities being in high re-gard – the rank of Irish universi-ties has never been lower and the continued cuts are ensuring that standards will continue to fall. The pressure may be even greater for qualifying degrees than more general ones, but the stress of this is offset by the fact that this is job training, and practise in this environment is essential for be-coming qualified. Many degrees have even fewer pressures, and taking on extra work in being a ‘yes man’ is not the responsibil-ity of the educational body, but of the individual’s time keeping abilities.

While being knee-deep in deadlines of already extended essays, and with exams for classes I’m not even sure the name of looming ever closer, it is very tempting to claim that Irish students have a tough life compared to everyone else. I’m not lazy, it’s the system. What do the French study, wine drinking and lechery? That is merely an extracurricular activity for the burdened paddy. Sadly, as much as I claim this to my parents, it is simply not the case. There is plenty of pressure on Irish students, but it is no more than is expected of anyone in full-time education.

Most Irish universities have switched over to modularisation, which not only gives you the freedom to choose classes outside of your core subjects, but also allows each class to be taken separately. A failed class does not mean a failed year as it might mean elsewhere. The freedom to fail, as it were, is a huge relief from the pressures of a degree. There are consequences, the re-sit fee being the least of them, but it is not the end of the world. Irish universities go out of their way to accommodate students like no other country.

One thing that is often complained about is how short the semesters in Irish universities have become. Just ten weeks of lectures and tutorials to cover a whole section of a course isn’t much, true. But while it may not allow for the most in-depth learning of a topic, it does serve to reduce stress on the hapless student. I think we can agree that a lot of college work is left until the last minute. There are tales of mystical beings who finish their assignments days, even weeks before the deadline, but this is just fantasy and rumour. No matter how long you get to write something, it’s done the night before, maybe over the course of a few days if you are really hard working and there’s no particularly interesting gossip on Facebook, but it won’t be finished until you have to hand it in. It’s the way of the world. Now, think how much work that would be if you had a year-long module. It’s too horrible to think about. Semesterisation has divided student life into easy to manage, bite-sized chunks rather than world-ending final

exams. Some final exams are worth as little as twenty per cent, hardly an overwhelming task.

I’m not suggesting that students aren’t under pressure, of course they are. Essays, exams, presentation and assignments are stressful. But is it too much? Part of the purpose of university is to ease us into the real world

– a taste of deadlines and living alone without the consequences that oversleeping every day for a year would have on your career. Everyone says these are the best days of our lives and tragically, this is true. You will never have such an opportunity for a varied and active social life. Even the most bombarded students find time for societies and free beer nights, and apart from turning in the odd paper, you have no responsibility. The amount of extra work students are able to take on when they need to shows that the course itself is not overly demanding. Due to financial circumstances students may be compelled to take on part-time work but the same cannot be said for Coppers and the supernatural hold it has on the drunk and bewildered.

Irish students face pressure, but no more than any other student has to deal with, and no more than they can cope with. The not only increasing numbers of people applying for college, but completing courses with very high marks, proves that the stress is not too much to bear.

rebuttal byYvanne KennedyThe semesters being shorter does not lessen the pressure students are under, but rather increases it. Irish degrees are of a globally recognised standard, and therefore are understood to provide the same learning as their overseas equivalents. All that semesterisation has done is compress the heavy workload into a short timeframe, where students have no breaks and few opportunities to relax. With so little time to comprehend the material it is no wonder that Irish students are feeling the strain, and while this may prepare them for the harsh realities of the working world, we should be working to change those realities rather than blindly accepting them.

no. Emer Sugrue

50st

The University Observer · 29 November 201110 OpiNiON

Loss LeaderWith the Prime Ministers of Italy and Greece recently replaced, Sean O’Grady

looks at what this change means for the economy and the people

As early as 2002, economists have been predicting the eventual failure of the euro.

At a time when most European countries were free of recession and financial worry, to the major-ity of people, these predictions would have seemed pessimistic. Presently, however, those fore-casts are becoming more realis-tic by the day. Several countries, including Ireland, must deal with

the looming threat of being com-pletely ousted from the currency, the case being particularly grave in Italy and Greece. With both countries on the brink of eco-nomic disaster, two new leaders have been elected in both Rome and Athens to try and alleviate the problems their countries face. It must be said that when consid-ering the actions of the previous leaders, this change in leadership

As the Occupy movements face a backlash from police, Hannah Dowling examines whether the economy has spread the damage equally

EcOnOmy Of EquAls

is without a doubt a positive one. However, it begs the question, is it all too little, too late?

Italy and Greece have been fac-ing economic hardships for quite some time. While it is unfair to lay the blame entirely on the leaders, it is evident that bad decisions were made on their behalf. The twelfth of November marked the end of the seventeen-year run of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Ber-lusconi. Berlusconi was once re-nowned for his undeniable cha-risma and political skills. This all came to a crashing halt when he was forced out of government, la-belled a ‘clown’ by his own people.

Berlusconi’s continuous politi-cal dominance in Italy, combined with his control of the media and wealth, almost echo the char-acteristics of another notorious Italian leader. Berlusconi, a man plagued by sex scandals and ac-cusations of objectifying women throughout his political career, once claimed in 2008 that, de-spite the countless predictions of economic disaster, he was ‘opti-mistic about the future’. Now, just three years later, Italy has been left in a crisis totalling 1.9 trillion euro in debt.

With all of this in mind, the im-mediate election of Mario Monti as the new Prime Minister will hopefully be a positive one. While Berlusconi has moved from wife to wife, Monti has been happily married for years. While Berlus-

coni’s image has been plagued with allegations of corruption, tax evasions and bribery, Monti’s past is as clean as a whistle. As was ex-pected, Monti, an expert econo-mist, faces a long uphill battle in trying to bring his country back on its feet. His main priority is so-cial equity and he has been wel-comed with open arms by the population, who are eager to see the opening of a new chapter for the country. Certainly Monti rep-resents a positive change for Italy, but whether or not he will be able to bring them out of their financial rut remains to be seen.

Just as Italy faces an uncertain future, its neighbour Greece lies in a similar situation; with its debt expected to increase 186 per cent by 2013, the now former Prime Minister George Papandreou has stepped down from his post. Pa-pandreou received substantial criticism from both members of the government and the public af-ter his decision to have a referen-dum on the question of the euro. The choice was seen as foolish by many, including French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who labelled Papandreou as ‘crazy’ and a ‘de-pressive’ after his referendum de-cision. While he later withdrew the referendum, Papandreou firmly placed himself in a negative light in the eyes of the Greek people.

The former Vice President of the European Central Bank and expert economist, Lucas Papademos fills

the void left by Papandreou. While Papademos himself is ready to admit that he is not a politician, he has been well received, win-ning a confidence vote in which 229 MPs voted in favour of him. Unlike Papandreou, Papadamos is determined to ensure Greece remains within the euro, saying

“Dealing with Greece’s problems will be more difficult if Greece is not a member of the eurozone.” This statement echoes the views of most Greeks and represents a positive indication for the country.

It goes without saying that both of the new leaders of Italy and Greece face a long struggle ahead of them to help regain some of the financial stability that their coun-tries are currently deprived of. The change in leadership is largely symbolic in both cases. From the positive reactions both Monti and Papadamos were given upon be-ing elected, it seems that people’s mindsets have changed from frustration and disillusionment to hope and optimism. While this is undoubtedly a positive change for both countries, whether or not this change in direction has come about in time to make a positive impact before the euro completely falls apart remains to be seen. Monto and Papadamos have a lot of pres-sure to succeed on their shoulders, but they also have the support of their people behind them. Wheth-er or not they will succeed in their goals, only time will tell.

stubbornly high living costs, and high mortgages taken out to buy overpriced property. Despite hav-ing benefited least from the boom, they will carry the majority of the subsequent cost, creating a new poor in the process. This is politi-cally dangerous. The aspirations of the middle class form the bed-rock of the western democratic model. When they lose hope the door is open for extremism. It is a truism that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in a recession. What is different this time is the damage being done to the politi-cally vital middle.

Look at America, where pov-erty is accelerating against a backdrop of increasing political extremism and dysfunction. Fami-lies who have worked their way up the ladder suddenly find them-selves falling with only the most basic of safety nets. The response of the political system has been skewed to say the least. Despite nearly one in seven Americans now living below the poverty line, taxes have actually been cut with breaks directed towards the top one per cent of the population. The richest in America now own around eighty-five per cent of the nation’s wealth, a figure that hasn’t been as high since before the Great Depression. However, it is rapidly becoming clear that a falling tide doesn’t sink all boats. America’s middle class is shrink-ing, unemployment is appallingly high and fifty million citizens can-not afford health insurance in a system where public health care would make Florence Nightingale reminisce fondly of the Crimean

War.America has never been a coun-

try of equality, merely a country of equality of opportunity. In-equality was rife and an accept-ed by-product of the American dream. This time, however, the gains of the wealthy are not seen as coming from honest endeavor, but from a corrupt and reckless financial system. Costly wars, ex-pensive financial bail outs and a weakened tax system have com-bined to leave America bereft of the resources needed to address these issues, even if it had the will to do so.

While the average taxpayer is suffering, the cash rich continue to prosper. Sales of brands such as Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Lau-rent and Porsche have increased. Luxury sales have shown an in-crease of eleven per cent in 2011 alone. In contrast, the middle and working classes struggle to make ends meet on reduced incomes. Graduates, for whom college was the route to advancement, now find themselves burdened with student loans and reduced job prospects.

The Occupy movement has gained traction in way that most forms of protests have not. It has struck a resonance with the core middle of the political system. It has given a voice to those behind the unemployment statistics, the struggling families and the disillu-sioned. One of its lasting legacies will be the fact that these protests have created national dialogue about the inequalities within our countries that so badly needed to be addressed.

from Wall Street to Dame Street, the rallying cry of the

“ninety-nine per cent versus one per cent” has struck a chord around the world. The Occupy protests embody the frustrations of average citizens against the very worst aspects of capitalism in a way that mainstream politics has not. Across the western world, the average citizen is now being held to ransom to the actions of a minority, whose financial power has immensely damaged the po-litical fabric of society. This re-cession is a rich man’s mess be-ing paid for from the poor man’s pocket.

What happened in Ireland was

self-inflicted. Our collapse may have been triggered by Lehman’s and US subprime lending, but had Ireland not been a house of cards we would have weathered the post-2008 financial storm. Ireland was weakened from within as greed infected the banking and business communities and a com-placent government slept at the wheel. The politicians have had their comeuppance at the polls; many of the former business elite such as Sean Quinn are either fil-ing for bankruptcy or are moving to the US. Prosecution of those who broke the law is proceed-ing at a glacial pace. Now, the key contributors to our national

downfall have been removed and it is left to the general public to tidy up the mess. On the theory that one should never let a good crisis go to waste, much good will have been achieved if we rebuild a fairer society that makes the re-currence of this crisis morally as well as legally unacceptable. In the meantime we have to live with the consequences on a day-to-day basis.

Unemployment and emigration are at levels not seen since the eighties. The banking system is catatonic; consumer morale is on the floor. As usual, the burden falls on the average citizen squeezed by government for more taxes, by

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 11 OpiNiON

Going postalas the government announce that grants for postgraduate degrees are to be scrapped, Phillipa White looks at the toll this will take on students

last week over 20,000 Irish university students walked the streets of the capital to

protest against the likely changes to third level fees in the upcoming budget. I, like many other students who refrained from going, con-jured up a clichéd array of excuses when clarifying my lack of atten-dance. Truth being told, however, I was in fact not “too busy with ex-ams”, nor was discouraged by the weather, and I obviously was not washing my hair. Frankly, I did not fully agree with the entire idea of the protest itself.

Although I was not willing to protest against the increase in un-

dergraduate fees, there was only one factor that made me want to rise from the depths of my inac-tion and hop on an inbound 46A in a banner-waving, slogan-chant-ing frenzy. Indeed, the cuts to the postgraduate maintenance grant is the one of the few grievances I have regarding the upcoming budget.

Currently, undergraduate stu-dents in Ireland have to pay for their registration fees themselves, the notable exception to the rule being the students who qualify to receive a grant. Postgraduate stu-dents have a much rougher time

- not only do most of them have to pay their registration fees but, unlike undergraduates, they also pay their own tuition fees. Again, some postgraduates who are means-tested can avail of a main-tenance grant which covers both types of fees.

To put it simply, postgraduates should not be subject to further cuts. Cutting the postgraduate maintenance grant in the upcom-ing budget means that far fewer people will be able to avail of postgraduate education in Ire-land. This is a critical measure that could cause a greater long-term detriment to the education sys-tem than any rise in undergradu-ate registration fees.

Firstly, the age profile and cir-cumstances of students must be considered. The median age of Irish undergraduates is twenty-one, as opposed to twenty-five for postgraduate students. It is thus inarguable that more under-graduates than postgraduates are financially dependent upon their parents.

Having long overtaken the age

when it is acceptable to scrounge off one’s parents, combined with many years continuously spent in further education, postgraduates having little to no savings base. Postgraduate students are, more often than not, strangled by the pitiless clasp of penury before they have even paid their course fees. Therefore, making postgrad-uate students the prime targets in the bid to make third-level institu-tions more cost-effective seems dubiously inequitable.

Secondly, if postgraduate stu-dents cannot avail of maintenance grants, this will have serious ef-fects on the number of students participating in postgraduate courses. Those who could only afford to do so in previous years, due to the existence of the main-tenance grants, will simply opt out of continuing with further studies and go straight into employment. This will lower the educational standards of Irish graduates en-tering the work force. Moreover, if our nations’ universities have few-er people pursuing Masters and PhDs and carrying out research, this will undoubtedly shake the integrity of our “knowledge econ-omy” to its core.

As stated previously, one of the main reasons why I am vehe-mently opposed to the cuts in the postgraduate grant is because undergraduates should be target-ed for increased fees before post-graduates are subject to cuts, in order to generate some revenue for the national universities. The reason for this is that many under-graduates can afford to pay more to their universities. Research has shown that the sectors in society who have benefited most from

the free fees scheme since its in-troduction in 1996, are the middle classes. In other words, since third level undergraduate fees were abolished, there has been a con-tinual growth in students attend-ing university, and many of these new attendees are students who could afford to attend univer-sity with or without the scheme. Therefore, to increase the regis-tration fees for many undergradu-ates equates to taxing those who can afford to be taxed.

The simple fact of the matter is that Ireland cannot continue to provide free third level educa-tion for all undergraduates. The only countries in the EU which still make such a luxury available are Scandinavian countries. Let it also be noted that these are countries which have some of the highest tax rates worldwide. Ire-land prides itself on being a low-tax country, and thus it is naïve to believe that we can continue down the path we embarked upon when we abolished third-level undergraduate fees in 1996. In short, if we want to keep our taxes low, we must pay for ser-vices, such as education, in other ways.

Ireland has a national debt of €117 billion, and this figure is growing at an astonishing rate of €20,000 almost every minute. Suffice to say, the country needs more money. Before the deci-sion to cut postgraduate grants is made, alternative ideas should be examined in a bid to gener-ate more funds. These alternative ideas may be controversial and downright unpopular, but in the long run, they may prove to be ex-actly what we need.

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The University Observer · 29 November 201112

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h e a l t h & s c i e n c e

What is the official title of your PhD?My work has no official title as of yet, as it keeps changing so often, but i’m provisionally calling it ‘investigating struc-tural engineering appli-cations of grammars in grammatical evolution’ (catchy, i know!). but it’s a lot more than that.

In layman’s terms, what does that mean?it basically (in an extreme nutshell) is about computational evolution. we are using darwinian principles of natural evolution (survival of the fittest, com-bination and mutation, etc.) to evolve architectural computer programs us-ing a grammar-based system. My part revolves around integrating structural engineering analysis capabilities with this evolutionary process; for example, we have created programs that allow designers to create complex 3d struc-tures such as bridges or electricity py-lons. My work ensures these generated designs are structurally feasible, i.e. they’ll stand up. if a design fails (falls down), then it isn’t “fit” for its environ-ment, and therefore is kicked out of the gene pool while “fitter” individuals advance and continually improve the population towards an ideal individual.

Describe your typical “day at work”.i try to get started before 10am and get through all of my emails, check the news, etc. then i’ll just dive into whatever’s on the agenda for the day. i might have a paper or submission to be working on, a presentation to prepare, or a project with the other guys in my team. i don’t really take a lunch break, i just walk to the shop, buy a roll and eat it on the way back; i’m back at my desk in about fifteen minutes and back at work. i usually finish up around 5pm, although if there’s an impend-ing deadline, or if i’m in “the zone” (i.e. getting loads of work done – this is a good thing and when it happens i’ll stay in for as long as possible and get as much done as i can), i’ll usually completely forget about the passage of time and end up staying until about eight or nine, at which point my stomach reminds me that it’s time to go home.

What, for you, is the most fascinat-ing thing about your field of study?For me, coming from the engineering world (i did a Masters in structural engineering with architecture in uCd), the most fascinating thing about moving into a more computer science-oriented world was the speed at which it moves. in engineer-ing things take a long time. a single project may last many years between the tender process, submission and assessment of tenders, planning, construction, maintenance, etc. even conference submissions take years – it is not unknown for an engineering submission deadline to be over a year, possibly as much as two years, before the actual conference. in the com-puting world by comparison, things move at light speed. Conferences can

be announced, papers submitted, and the conference attended in under six months. another fascinating thing for me is the relative limitless potential of the field. Literally, whatever you can imagine can be implemented via code, all that stands in the way is your own skill in getting the ideas in working order through the keyboard. Coming from the regimented rules and laws of engineering, the freedom is incredible.

In your opinion, what are the best and worst things about being a post-graduate student?Having a student card that says “doc-tor of Philosophy” on it! and getting paid to go to college isn’t too bad either. i feel the hardest thing for any new Phd candidate is the initial stages of

“oh god what the hell am i doing here”. every person initially feels completely overwhelmed by the undertaking they’ve signed up to and they wonder how the hell they arrived in this situ-ation. but you eventually find out that everyone else feels the same and then you just get on with it. it’s like any col-lege project – it’s horrifically daunting at first, but as soon as you put pen to paper it just flows, and once you get into your stride you’re grand.

How could your work make a difference to the world?i’m not sure. i hope to be able to provide a tool for any designer/engineer/architect looking either for inspiration in a design scenario or for full (basic) design solutions which they can build on.

How do you hope your PhD will affect your career prospects?yet again, i’m not sure! that’s at least three years away at this stage, so i’m not thinking about it.

Phd student Michael Fenton talks to Alison Lee about his life as a postgraduate student and the fascinating world of structural engineering

doctor, doctor?

Language is such a part of our lives that we scarcely give it thought. For the most part, it is

the medium through which we project ourselves onto the world, and in turn through which we gain our percep-tions of the world. our success as a spe-cies owes much to the communicative powers language affords. it enabled our ancestors to become the organised, cooperative species we are today. but where did it come from? a sentence leaves no skeleton, so how are we to track its origin?

researchers of the past, lacking physical evidence or a definite direc-tion, were free to speculate on the origins of language. However, all of their conjecture served only to cause frustration, to the extent that the Lin-guistic society of Paris banned all com-munication on the origin of language in 1866, quickly followed by its english counterpart, the Philological society of London, in 1873. it would be almost a century before it was mentioned again.

in the 1960s, studies of the deep structure of language, and the effort-less way in which children acquire it, lead modern linguists such as Noam Chomsky (pictured) to propose that it must have some biological foundation. Following on from this, some asserted that language might have been shaped by natural selection. if so, it should be possible to gain an understanding of the origins of language by studying the parlance of natural selection, dNa. bi-ologists toiled for years, without find-ing a single gene to support this theory, until a breakthrough occurred in 2001.

the Ke family (so named in scien-tific literature for privacy reasons) are an extended family living in London, who suffered to a large extent from speech and language problems (with unaffected cognitive abilities). the

The communicative genethe science behind the

human acquisition of language skills is not yet

fully understood, but James Kelly examines

a discovery which indicates that it may be

genetically influenced

family’s children were referred to the institute of Child Health at university College London. on investigating the family’s medical history, the problem was traced back to a grandmother. re-searchers deduced that she must have carried a rare genetic mutation. Fur-ther studies revealed that all of the suf-fering family members had a mutant

FoxP2 gene. this gene, which is highly conserved

(present in an extremely similar form) in all vertebrates, produces a protein called FoxP2. this protein is present in high levels in developing embryos and plays a key role in mediating other genes in the brain, resulting in neurons being “switched” on or off. it is thought

that the complex neural pattering or-chestrated by FoxP2 is essential for the faculty of speech. Mice have been genetically engineered to produce the human FoxP2 protein. these mice show increased neuronal development in the basal ganglia - an area key to pro-cedural learning and voluntary motor control, both necessary for speech and

quicker learning times. interestingly, they also emit a loud frequency sound instead of a squeak.

while association of the FoxP2 gene with language is a major step for-ward, there is still a long way to go. as-pects of language such as grammar and syntax have yet to be afforded a genetic grounding.

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 13scieNce & HealTH

The Observer Guide TO survivinG examsIn our final buzz killing column of 2011, Alison Lee tells you how to survive the immense dangers surrounding exam time

studying and sitting exams is tough on both the mind and body, and looking after your health at this time of year can seriously pay off in terms of exam performance. your diet can play a huge role in how well your brain works: although it comprises only two per cent of body weight, the brain greedily consumes twenty per cent of your body’s energy when you’re at rest. blood glucose levels need to be kept above four millimoles per litre to prevent symptoms of mild hypoglycaemia, which can include impaired judgement, confusion and amnesia - definitely not what you need during an exam. low blood sugar also causes a release of adrenaline, which enhances feelings of anxiety. basically eat a light meal containing a source of protein before an exam. if you’re feeling too nervous to eat, go for a smoothie or protein shake instead.

there is even evidence that some foods enhance how well our brains function. everyone has heard about the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, but what do they do? evidence has accumulated that they affect the synapses (points where our brain cells, or “neurons” connect). Here they may stimulate the release of transmitter chemicals which affect learning and memory - they have been linked to prevention of dementia and Alzheimer’s in elderly people. Although conclusive evidence that omega-3 does improve cognition is lacking, taking fish oil supplements can’t hurt. Just don’t forget that a balanced intake of vitamins and minerals is important.

the atmospheric temperature also affects how well the brain works. our brains work most efficiently at a temperature of below 25 degrees Celsius. therefore if you study while wrapped in jumpers with the heater on and a mug of tea at your elbow, beware. you may feel warm and happy but it’s likely you’re making yourself sleepy and less productive. luckily, this is unlikely to be an issue in the draughty rDs.

sleep is also essential for mental function; in fact, one sleepless night can affect your brain function as much as being over the legal alcohol limit. studies have shown that people who focus on their anxiety during exam time sleep less than those who don’t openly display their emotions - the latter group sleep to escape their worries. thus if insomnia is an issue, try take your mind off study and focus on something different for a while.

sadly hitting the books is probably the best way to prepare for an exam but looking after your overall health can definitely help you along - then you can undo all your good work over the Christmas holidays.

the human cell is a complex structure, at the core of which lies the nucleus. the nucleus contains chromosomal

dNa, which is the genetic material of the cell. Full genome sequencing involves de-termining the complete sequence of the chromosomal dNa as well as the sequence of mitochondrial dNa and chromosomal dNa in plants.

the human genome has already been sequenced to an extent, which is a huge step in the area of molecular biology, con-sidering that the original double helix was only discovered in 1953 by James d. watson and Francis Crick (pictured). it is through the activity of the dNa that proteins are formed, though the complete human pro-teome has yet to be sequenced.

to understand the significance and complexity of sequencing a genome and the current attempts at sequencing a proteome, it is necessary to have a certain extent of knowledge about the sequences and struc-tures that are being dealt with.

the human cell has an outer mem-brane, which encloses the fluid cytoplasm, in which all of the various parts of the cell are suspended. these include the energy-producing mitochondria, the protein-translating ribosomes and of course the dNa-containing nucleus. in the nucleus is found the genetic material, which consists of twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, giv-ing a total of forty-six per cell. each of these chromosomes is made of dNa, which con-tains the genetic information required for an organism to function.

the dNa (deoxyribonucleic acid) back-bone of a chromosome strand consists of two complementary strands wound to-gether in a double-helix formation. the backbone of each strand is comprised of a sugar (deoxyribose) and phosphate group, which are held together by phosphodiester bonds. deoxyribose is a five-carbon sugar, which contains one less oxygen than its rel-ative ribose, which is what gives it its name. the repetitive structures of sugar and phosphate make up the dNa’s backbone.

attached to the other side of the sugar

molecule on the backbone is a nucleic base. there are four different nucleic bases found in dNa – adenine (a), thymine (t), guanine (g) and cytosine (C), only one of which is attached to each sugar. However, when the two strands of the dNa molecule intertwine to form the double helix, an ad-enine molecule must be opposite a thymine molecule, as these bind together with three hydrogen bonds, and a guanine molecule must be facing cytosine molecule as this pairing forms three hydrogen bonds. be-cause of the necessity for the strands to be complementary to each other, both strands are used as templates for the formation of a new complementary strand during replica-tion, which results in two identical chromo-somes.

a gene is a series of thousands of base pairs in a row: every gene codes for the pro-duction of a specific protein, which leads to various outcomes in the body. Proteins are complex three-dimensional structures composed of amino acids. there are twenty different amino acids in nature; a series of three base pairs codes for the production of a particular amino acid. as there are twen-ty amino acids, each has more than one pos-sible triplet sequence coding for it.

For a gene, or a sequence of bases, to be formed into a string of amino acids, a series of steps must take place. these steps can be divided into transcription and transla-tion. in the first, a protein called rNa poly-merase recognises a specific sequence of nucleic acids, called the promoter. the pro-moter is a length of bases before the gene sequence which signals for the rNa poly-merase to bind to the chromosome. the rNa, along with other transcription fac-tors, binds to the promoter and begins the process of transcription once it detects the

start codon, aug. the rNa polymerase stops its activity once it reaches a three base sequence called the stop codon which is any of taa, tag or tga, located at the end of the gene.

transcription is the process by which a copy of the dNa sequence is made into a rNa template. this template is transport-ed out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm, where ribosomes convert the sequence to a chain of amino acids through a process called translation; in humans, this takes place in the endoplasmic reticulum. the proteins then undergo post-translational modification in the golgi body of the cell, which may include, among others, ubiqui-tation, phosphorylation or glycosylation of the protein, which is the addition of other molecules to the amino acid sequence. the protein then joins with other proteins to form a holoprotein, as most proteins do not function alone, which is then transported to it’s final destination within the cell.

one of the main aims of the Human genome Project was to sequence all of the 20,000 – 25,000 genes found on hu-

man chromosomes, some three billion base pairs in total. From the descrip-tion above, it is easy to see that this was quite a mam-moth task – it was by no means a simple undertak-ing but one that, now that it is complete, has a huge impact on mankind.

at the outset of this piece, it was stated that the entire human genome has been sequenced, but only to an extent. there are still small sections of the genome that have not been sequenced due to the gaps in question not responding to the se-quencing techniques ap-plied to already sequenced parts of the genome.

it is the sequence in which nucleic bases ap-pear that the Human ge-nome Project is based on. the u.s. department of energy and the National institutes of Health an-nounced a primary draft of the first human genome in June 2000 and a more complete draft in 2003. in september 2010, re-searchers at uCd’s Con-way institute completed the sequencing of the first entire genome of an irish individual. this project was carried out as every individual’s genome, with the exception of identical twins, is different.

this difference in each human’s dNa comes from conception – all cells but one in the human body contain double-stranded dNa; however, the female gametes, the egg cells, and the male gametes, the sperm, are both haploid, i.e. they contain singe stranded chromosomes only. upon conception, when they fuse to form a zygote, they form two-stranded chromosomes.

the dNa coming from the mother and the dNa coming from the father would both have been mutated in some way as the cells divided; so, because half of the new organ-ism’s dNa comes from the mother and the other half from the father, each individual’s dNa is different.

because of the individuality of the re-spective genomes, the first genome that was announced in 2003 was a representa-tive one, formed from the compilation of more than one human genome. it would have matched relatively closely to most people’s personal gene sequences, though some variations would have occurred due to the variety from case to case.

of the many benefits that have come out of the sequencing process, one of the most significant is the impact it has had in the area of molecular medicine. research-ers have been able to produce increasingly detailed genome maps, which allow them to locate and target genes associated with genetic conditions such as breast cancer, alzheimer’s disease and myotonic dystro-phy. this targeting allows them to focus on examining the fundamental causes of the disease in question rather than solely treat-ing the symptoms.

the next big step in the study of molecu-lar systems is the sequencing of the pro-teome – this would involve the sequencing of the entire complement of human pro-teins, including the modifications made to sets of proteins, which vary depending on the conditions present.

one of the basic problems with pro-teomics is the sheer complexity of proteins not only in their varying structure, but also in their expression. while the genome can be considered constant, despite mutations that may occur, proteins are produced due to a stimulus that is produced as a re-sult of varying cell conditions. this means that the proteome in each cell of the body differs depending on the cell and the time. after the rNa strand is translated into a se-ries of amino acids, the protein undergoes post-translational modifications. a protein can undergo any number of these, which further complicates its structure and at-tempts at sequencing it.

Proteomics gives a more thorough un-derstanding of an organism than genomics, as genomics simply provides a fundamen-tal template from which proteins are made. Proteomics however, examines all of the possible ramifications of the outcomes of transcription. the level at which a gene is transcribed is only a minor estimate of its level of expression as a protein. this is be-cause in some cases a protein may become active only once it has undergone post-translational modification; a protein may be spliced after its production, giving two separate proteins or a section of the pro-tein may degrade, giving a wholly different structure.

examining proteins at a detailed level and determining their functions is of huge significance as knowledge of the dNa sequence of an organism is not sufficient when attempting to explain the way in which cells work or in examining the cause of disease. it is the function of proteins in every single cell of the body, from their ac-tions in the phospholipid membrane and their functions as transport molecules to the need for their presence for the for-mation of yet a different protein, that de-termine our body’s response to different stimuli. they are one of the most important molecules in our body, which when we un-derstand them completely, may give us a whole new lease on life.

is the proteome the new genome?

Following the determination of the human genome in the 2000s, Katie Hughes examines the next step in molecular sequencing

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The University Observer · 29 November 201114

Talleyrand Felicitations Failures!

It’s that time of year again, to eat, drink, and merrily storm out of exams you have just comprehensively failed. Yes, it’s Christmas, and that means exams, the freezing aerodrome of the Industries Hall, and the faint promise of mulled wine and parental care to bide you over until the 21st. Just think, you’re halfway through the year, and look at all the time you’ve already squandered! Just get your socks on now, because time is running out; you only have a few short weeks to pretend that a beloved grandparent died and that you’re not responsible for the fact you haven’t done a jot in the last four months. Just think of all the books you never bought, or bought and never opened – this is why you came to UCD.

Speaking of our beloved alma mater, UCD have released a brand new piece of YouTube propaganda to try and trick naïve Leaving Cert-ers into thinking we are a real college, and bless them for trying. “What is the mind?” the advert rings out; well, I’d imagine you should know, you being a university and all. Why are you asking me? Once again, UCD is off to a flying start.

Talleyrand has good reason to believe that Hugh Brady simply took an ad for O2, and cut in the occasional shot of a library or some girls jumping about on the Dramsoc stage – and by God, it worked. If I wasn’t already in UCD, I’d be transferring here immediately, such is the allure of texting on a bench and the promise of a Frank McGuinness in every classroom. Stop pretending Frank McGuinness is in every classroom, UCD – we only have the one, and you’re too cheap to buy us another one.

Also in UCD’s latest magnum opus is a lady looking distractedly at an iPad while standing outside a Neolithic burial ground, presumably the Neolithic burial grounds recently opened behind the Ag building. The ad is awash with such inconsistancies; firstly, the advert heavily infers that people commonly read on the grass of UCD’s lush campus, which as we all know is a unique strand of weed that remains permanently wet and results not in learning, but in wet bottoms and ‘surprise’ rashes. Also, the ad features good-looking people, and as a result, the Advertising Standards Authority have begun their investigation into failure to fulfil legitimate expectations.

Talleyrand hates to harp on about these things, but good Christ, has anyone even seen this ad? ‘The Social Network-but-crap’ rowing scene alone is enough to make you wonder who they are trying to fool. The best part is the strange man who is in the bushes, staring at the rowers while they fly past on that river that we supposedly have – the vibe is less Oxbridge, more Deliverance.

In other news, Talleyrand personally oversaw the demolition of the running track. Look closely at the photograph of the running track being ripped up, particularly at the big JCB in the foreground – you might just see a certain French diplomat proudly gesticulating from the cabin. Yes, it was me all along, and the upper-echelons of the University hadn’t a thing to do with it.

Why did I do it, I hear you cry, running around campus assuming everyone cares about a blasted running track as much as you do? No particular reason, I was simply bored, and people who are physically proactive annoy me. Turns out I was absolutely right to do it – people who charge around campus like a half-dressed flashmob, disrupting people from their studies and screaming like svelte howler monkeys annoy me even more.

With that said, one does understand their frustration. Being told that the track is being taken away from you, only to have it conveniently torn down just twenty-one hours later, represents a distinct and flagrant lack of respect, even outright deceit. And for that, Talleyrand apologises. I’m glad we can all put the nasty business behind us.

Talley-ho!Talleyrand

Irish University Senior Management:

Still a Man’s World? prof. pat O’Connor, university of Limerick

Education can’t evade reform

ivan Yates

in ireland, all of those in the highest position (Presidents) in our publicly funded universities are men; as are eighty-two to eighty-six per cent of those at deputy President/Vice Presiden-tial level. a quarter of those at the next level (deans) are women

– but there is no guarantee that these will move up the hierarchy in the future. suggestions that these patterns reflect women’s innate abilities or their family responsibilities are challenged by the fact that, for example, forty-one per cent of those at the top of swedish universities are women (see table 1). Further-more, we know that there are women at the top of irish insti-tutes of technology. so, there is something else going on in irish universities.

universities are hierarchical organisations, with power increasingly concentrated

in the hands of a small group of people at the top. in irish univer-sities these are, overwhelmingly, men. thus at a time when girls are outperforming boys in the educa-tional system; where they consti-tute more than half of the students in universities; where half of those in the professions are women, as are one third of those in senior management and administrative jobs nationally; universities remain male dominated institutions.

a recent cross-national study (including sweden, australia, New Zealand, south africa, Portugal, the uK and turkey, as well as ireland) showed that the organisational culture at senior management level in irish universities was one where male academic senior managers were, for the most part, particu-larly comfortable working with other men. thus, as one of the respondents noted: “Most of the men i work with, the bottom line is that they would be much more comfortable to be working

with men. they vaguely put up with you, accept that you have a right to be there but if it was up to themselves, they are more comfortable around men. this is not a generational thing. those most uncomfortable are seriously younger.” Male academic senior managers who had not worked outside ireland were particularly likely to deny the importance of gender in shaping organisational culture. on the other hand, wom-en senior managers were likely to see the organisational culture as

‘a boys club’ - one where confor-mity was valued and where men appointed those who were like themselves.

in the irish study the senior managers typically suggested that ‘the problem was women’. thus they referred to women’s

at O’Connor, rsity of Limerick

Country

sweden*australiairelandNew Zealandsouth africaPortugalturkeyuK

President or equivalent

411800227108

Deputy President or equivalent

35361417302776

Other Vice Presidents or equivalent

55401817016421

Dean

3038251728231320

* a. goransson (2011)

ments will amount to €12 billion in 2014. this year’s primary budget deficit, leaving aside bank recapi-talisation, will exceed €10 billion. Four successive budgets of tax hikes have proved that there is not a revenue-raising solution to close the gap between pub-lic spending and revenue. our creditors (the troika) insist on cost control before releasing future tranches of cash flow.

education is a people business. eighty-five per cent of it is spent on teach-ers’ pay. Cutbacks com-prise of reduced salaries or lower numbers. the Croke Park agreement prohibits the former. at primary and secondary level, this means raising the pu-pil teacher ratio – with resultant loss of 2,000 jobs. school transport costs will double. special Needs assistant posts will be restricted. school build-

in the run-up to the december 6th budget, all vested interests in society

have been busy explaining why the axe should not fall on their area. one might have expected informed understanding amongst the educational elite about accep-tance of austerity. No chance. representatives of educa-tional institutes, teachers’ unions, and student groups have been to the forefront of seeking exemption from fiscal reality. the €8.7 billion spent by the department of education has to be reduced by circa ten per cent in real terms over the next three years.

all expenditure pro-grammes are only being sus-tained by borrowing. Mar-kets won’t lend this finance because they believe our sovereign debt is unsustain-able. they are correct. the national debt is heading for €220 billion, while gNP is €164 billion. interest repay-

ing programmes, including both renovations and new facilities, will be curtailed. despite demo-graphic pressures of a growing population, total costs will be strictly limited.

in this context, the third level education sector seems to be responding like a spoiled child.

“Not me, guv” rings hollow in contemporary crises. Fairness is a pre-requisite for even-handed public administration. the basics of literacy, numeracy and language skills are not automatic for many in society. early school leavers represent the most dis-advantaged. Participation rates in third level institutions mean it is a privilege rather than an entitlement to go to college. Not everyone is so lucky. the benefits of this extra tier of education un-doubtedly enhance the personal future income and employment prospects of its beneficiaries. why are unskilled workers (as taxpayers) expected to provide funds, while participants are not?

while higher education interests make ever greater de-mands on government, they seem unprepared to recognise or accept serious attempts to obtain greater productivity, transparency and accountability. an increased requirement of public funding,

from €1.3 billion to €1.8 billion by 2020, is being sought from the exchequer. it is clear that the question of consolidation between universities, institutes of technol-ogy and other providers must be addressed on a regional basis to deliver effective value for money. there seems to be little appetite for the pooling of resources.

any extra resources must be conditional on key reforms. ge-neric contracts of tutor produc-tivity reveal a primary teacher’s work to be an average of 1,037 hours per annum; secondary school colleagues must fulfil 735 hours per annum; university lec-turers’ basic commitment is 560 hours per annum. on a weekly ba-sis, this means the relative hours per week are, respectively, thirty-six, twenty-two and as few as six. union representatives of tutors at universities have been the least open to the modest reforms of the Croke Park agreement, compared to other teachers’ organisations. by comparison with international colleagues, notably britain and the Netherlands, our lecturers are amongst the most costly, with the least obligations.

the most significant recent analysis of higher education in ireland was the Hunt report, chaired by Colin Hunt. it was

unambiguously supportive of the contribution of the higher educa-tion system in providing stimulus to innovation, job creation and economic renewal. However, it raised serious questions about the current organisation and fi-nancing of the sector. the Higher education authority have pre-sided over wasteful duplication and failed to secure full, trans-parent comparative data across institutions. this is mirrored by a decline in top colleges’ com-petitive places on international league tables. Many it and other multinational employers tell me half of their new employee recruits have to be immigrants, because of the lack of suitably qualified graduates.

governance structures at higher education level must be rationalised, made more trans-parent and accountable. there is an overreliance on the taxpayer currently. Knowledge transfer and linkages with industry in new partnerships are critical to a new partnership that must emerge. the pace of reform and adaptability of the curriculum is far too slow for modern industry. Much of the research work in colleges is exorbitantly expensive, unfocused and of little commer-cial benefit – especially in the

arts sphere. there is an appalling lack of leadership at the apex of education in addressing these critiques. the rest of society would be much more sympa-thetic towards the educational elite if there was an open internal appraisal and willingness to modernise. Not as members of any political party, but as young people and students, we should all be gravely concerned about our futures and opportunities. the number of jobs available is far less than the number of people who need them. it won’t matter if we are staunch support-ers of Fianna Fáil or Fine gael in ireland, or democrats or repub-licans in america if we don’t have jobs and are unable to put a roof over our heads and food on the table once we graduate. it’s high time we examine economic in-equality and move to make some changes to improve our chances.

when critics of the occupy movement speak out against it, i am reminded of the famous quote by Mahatma gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” it appears that protestors around the world are now some-where between the second and third section of the quote. Fasten your seatbelts.

lack of career planning, low self-esteem, high valuation of caring, lack of career ambition, poor abil-ity to market themselves and life-styles choices. such explanations obviate the need to look at the organisational culture or wider systemic issues. they are thus very convenient for those who wish to perpetuate the status quo. indeed, some of the senior man-agers in the irish study felt that it was not in women’s own interest to be in such management posi-tions: “we have a number of good women doing a great job … but i

wouldn’t want … to pull them into a man-agement area. even from their own career path point of view they are better off ... getting well known in their own area.” such attitudes reflect a kind of patronising heroic masculin-ity insofar as they purport to protect women, while at the same time maintain-

ing men’s positional power. both men and women thought

that presidents had the power to change the gender balance in uni-versity senior management teams. both men and women thought that the appointment of women to such senior management posi-tions was important. However, there was a reluctance to do this. Very different patterns emerged in for example, sweden and to a lesser extent australia. in both of these countries pro-activity by those in the (equivalent of the) Presidential position was seen as appropriate to ensure that university management was not homogenously male dominated.

given the scale of the chal-lenges facing irish society in general, and irish universities in particular, does this lack of diver-

sity matter? Firstly, we know that diversity in management teams is strongly related to innovation, so that its absence is likely to inhibit the kind of innovatory approach that the state wishes to foster. secondly, if fifty-one per cent of the population is excluded on the basis of gender, then the thresh-old of excellence will inevitably be at a lower level. thirdly, the importance of role models has also been widely recognised. thus male dominance in senior management in the universities is giving a very clear message to bright, well-educated young women that there is no place for them in senior management in such organisations. Finally, uni-versities are still important in the creation, transmission and vali-dation of knowledge – indeed, in the definition of what constitutes valued knowledge. Hence the kind of knowledge that is seen as valuable may well be ultimately affected by gender, with conse-quences as regards university priorities and funding.

the male dominance of senior management in irish publicly funded universities is mirrored in the political system where eighty-five per cent of the tds are men. given the need for genuinely innovative thinking in ireland today, it is difficult not to see male dominance in irish university senior management as ultimately inhibiting the contri-bution that universities will make at this critical time.

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 15

in this issue of the University Observer, distinguished author Colm tóibín talked with Otwo about the implicit racism and homophobia of irish society;

to quote Mr. tóibín in the article, “i think in most families there’s an abso-lute innate racism where you learn not to say things … there’s no overt ho-mophobia in political discourse, or the newspapers, or on radio, but it doesn’t mean that anybody longs to have a gay baby.” as it happens, his comments could not have been more timely.

when former Mayor of Naas darren scully made his incredibly hurtful and politically suicidal remarks on Kildare FM last week, he did not simply repre-sent a solitary racist Fine gael member who had slipped through the cracks and into a high profile position; his personal opinions represent a subtle examination of a subtextual racism that pervades far deeper into the domestic social un-conscious than we would care to admit.

to quote Mr. scully on the radio show in question, “i have found many africans are well versed on their en-titlements, [and] are currently on most days in the Council building, you see a steady stream of them coming in look-ing for housing or grants or whatever is going”, before following this state-ment, and many like it, with the most

petty and cowardly of apologetic senti-ments; “i abhor racism in all its forms.”

these attitudes are beyond outdated in a purportedly modern ireland, and represent nothing less than a slap in the face of a new generation of multi-cultural young people who are, both legally and spiritually, wholly irish. His remarks do not only mark a shocking in-ability (or, at the very least, a startling unwillingness) to provide his obliga-tory duty of care to his constituents, but it also displays how deep these preju-dices run, regardless of how willing we are to bury our heads in sand and qui-etly convince ourselves that we are liv-ing in a post-racial, post-racist society.

on the 16th of this month, israel’s most-read newspaper, yedioth ahro-noth, ran a story online entitled ‘ireland most hostile country in europe’. the article was printed following criticism from the israeli Foreign Ministry that dublin City Council allegedly subsi-dised an anti-idF, pro-Palestinian dis-play. one cannot account for the quality or the substance of the piece itself, but unfortunately, it doesn’t matter – the ar-ticle was widely viewed and commented on, and painted ireland as an unreserv-edly anti-semitic state. although irish readers were quick to jump into the fray to defend a pro-Palestinian viewpoint as political, rather than racial, perhaps

the question should be asked – can we honestly exclude the possibility that race does not play a considerable factor in both this, and other national politi-cal preoccupations? How deep are the scars of anti-semitism left by the ser-mons on “treacherous Jews” that rang from altars just one generation ago?

we might look to uCd as a perfect example of how the issue of race is still alive and well in both public and private life. regardless of our vaguely left of centre, secular intellectual self-image, race is still plays a profound role in our student governance. despite the fact that, according to the uCd interna-tional student Handbook, “over nine-teen per cent of uCd’s student body came from outside ireland and this international dimension is greatly val-ued by the university”, the worrying fact remains; out of over one-hundred and fifty elected representatives in our student government, including Class reps, Programme officers and the sab-batical officers, only one is non-white.

while some might be quick to blow the whistle on institutional discrimina-tion (and not without merit), the issue stands that each representative was elected democratically. the fault, un-fortunately, is not with the system, or with some ill-defined elitism within the university or the student government,

but rather, we are the problem. we, as an electorate, made the decision (be it conscious or not) to elect an almost en-tirely white student government. this is not an issue exclusive to our cam-pus, but instead mirrored somewhat by the exclusively white faces repre-senting us nationally in dáil Éireann.

Historians and sociologists from w.e.H. Lecky onwards have described, in some manner, the irish Catholic ‘underdog’ mentality, which seems to have culturally placed us, in our own hearts and minds, in the arche-typal role of the oppressed. deep in our cultural subconscious is the quiet but consuming belief that we cannot be racist, because we are ourselves a victimised race. such thinking, how-ever, is as outdated and unsuitable for the modern world as the aforemen-tioned ex-Mayor’s vitriol. we are part of an international community, and play a political and economic role on a world stage, and as such, the victim complex begins to unravel. the silent belief that we are somehow ‘exempt’ from racism has become more and more laughable. this argument does not amount to what the ex-Mayor de-scribed as “the PC brigade”; rather, it is the only logical response to an antiquated social preconception that became unacceptable decades ago.

Observer Editorialeditor@universityobserver.ie

Quotes of the Fortnight

“This campaign has really taken legs and it’s beginning to run”

sports officer Paddy Guiney on the ‘save our track’ campaign

“[Students] love to help people that were their own age once, and have been through Christmas, and know what a special time it is for children”

Rachel Breslin on operation Christmas Child

“It would in be in line with what taught Masters courses [cost], there’s a six at the start of it”

dean of architecture Prof. Hugh Campbell

on the cost associated with the new Master of architecture

“Obviously it had a far smaller turn-out than the march but it was more of a media stunt than anything”

Brendan Lacey on the ‘death of education’

Funeral March

“There’ll be toilet facilities, vending machines and security and safety”

Sam Geoghegan on extra-hour study facilities

editorJon Hozier-byrne

deputy editorKate rothwell

art and design directorConor o’toole

otwo editorsgeorge Morahanaoife Valentine

News editorKatie Hughes

Features editorMatt gregg

opinion editoremer sugrue

science & Health editorConor o’Nolan

Chief science & Health writeralison Lee

sports editordaniel Keenan

irish editorséamas Ó Meachair

Music editorCormac duffy

Film editordermot o’rourke

Fashion editorsophie Lioe

Food & travel editorelaine Lavery

online editorryan MacKenzie

Copy editorsgeorge Morahanaoife Valentine

Chief Photographerdavid Nowak

Contributorsthe badgerelizabeth beechamaoife brophyian Campbelldixon Coltranerory CreanHannah dowlingdonna doyleChloé duaneNiamh emmett sean Finnansally Haydenrachel Heaveysara HolbrookNiamh Hynesadam KearneyJames Kellyaaron Kennedyyvanne KennedyNicholas Lawrieemily Longworthoisin sheehyMaitiu Mac seoinNiall Mac taidhgeimear McgovernMystic Mittens

dan MoriartyMatthew Morrowemily Mullengordon o’Callaghansean o’gradybrian o’LearyCaitriona o’Malleyevan o’QuigleyJason Quigleyalex rathkeMaggie rekben storeytalleyranddenis VaughanJack walsh Maria whelanPhillipa white

illustratorolwen Hogan

Photographersrob ManningCaoimhe McdonnellKate rothwell

special thanksPeter, ian, tim, Malcolm, ade, Jonathan, dave, emma, ged, bob, steve at gPC Manchestereilis o’briendominic MartellaColm, sabrina and rory at MCd Promotionsbernie divilly at Piasgiselle Jiangdominic, grace, Charlie, Jason, gary, stephen, Mark, sandra, Paul and all the student Centre staffamy bracken, donna doyle, bríd doherty, Paul Fennessey, bridget Fitzsimons, danielle Moran, dave Neary, Quinton o’reilly, rob Lowney, gav reilly, Natalie Voorheis, raine Hozier-byrne and John byrne and all other friends and family who have supported us. we wish you all a very happy Christmas.

the University Observer

Volume xViii issue Vi

telephone: (01) 716 3119/3120email: info@universityobserver.ie

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Letters should be sent by email toletters@universityobserver.ie or by mail toThe editor, The University Observer,UCD Student Centre, belfield, Dublin 4

the editor reserves the right to edit any letters.all letters are subject to editorial approval.

Clarifications & Corrections

Letters to the

editordear editor,

the University Observer of 15 Novem-ber 2011 quoted sam geoghegan, su education officer, as claiming that “a huge amount of staff in the university seem to take the summer off”.

academics employed by univer-sity College dublin are contractually obliged to undertake research. this essential professional activity ad-vances knowledge, enhances teaching and consequently students’ learning experience, as well as raising the aca-demic profile of the university, which is also much to the advantage of uCd’s students and graduates. research often involves visiting international archives and libraries, participating in national and international conferences, and always means lengthy absorption in the subject under study. increasing-ly, the months of July and august are the only period of the year when any such sustained research can be carried out, given the extent of the assessment periods (which for academics include external examining, often abroad, and student appeal processes within uCd),

...the worrying fact remains; out of over one-hundred and fifty elected representatives in our student government, including Class Reps, Programme Officers and the Sabbatical Officers, only one is non-white.

it is the policy of the University Observer to rectify any errors as soon as they arise.

Queries and clarifications can be addressed to info@universityobserver.ie.

as well as the onerous effects of a rap-idly worsening staffing situation in the context of increasing student numbers.

we hope that Mr. geoghegan will dissociate himself unambiguously from the comment attributed to him, and we ask him to work energetically as su education officer to reflect and promote the centrality of research to education at uCd, in order that it may continue to aspire to be a world-class university.

yours sincerely,dr Paolo acquavivadr Phyllis gaffneydr Michael brophydr eric Haywooddr derval Conroy dr emer o’beirnedr siobhán donovandr síofra Piersedr ursala Fanningdr Jeanne riouProfessor Mary gallagherdr stephen schwartz

school of Languages and Literatures, uCd

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The University Observer · 29 November 201118 spOrT

The Badger’s End of Year Fashion Awards

sports Digestby AlEx RAthkE AthleticsNUI Maynooth hosted the 2011 All Ireland Universities Road Relay Championships. UCD were captained by Laura Shaughessy on the Women’s team and Richard Owens on the Men’s team who brought home silverware for the first time since 2006. The team of Owens, Dan King, Joe Sweeney, Cian O’Rielly and Timothee Francony finished twenty-four seconds ahead of their nearest rivals to claim gold, while UCD’s Women’s team finished fifth. The next national event is the Cross-Country Championships in February.

swimmingOn Wednesday last, UCD swam in the Colleges and University Swimming Association of Ireland League (CUSAI) against hosts Queens University of Belfast, Sligo IT and Blanchardstown IT. UCD put themselves ahead within the first two events and increased the lead during the two-hour competition. UCD ended up winning the first leg of the meet, while the return leg will be hosted by UCD on the 3rd of December.

The winner of that group will progress to race any of the other teams in the second group, con-taining NUI Galway, NUI May-nooth, UCC or Waterford IT. UCD, who last year won the Intervarsi-ties title, will be looking to regain that status, while also looking to win the newly introduced league competition for the first time.

men’s hockeyLast Monday night, UCD made it into the Irish Senior Cup for the first time since 2007 as they beat Glenanne 4-2 in Belfield. Goals from Nick Burns, David Watkins and Conor Motyer ensured that UCD was the first of the two final-ists. They will play either Railway Union or Fingal in the final.

sailingThe National Championships took place on the weekend of the 12th November. Twenty teams entered the competition, with UCD enter-ing three teams. UCD1 and UCD2 were drawn against each other in the opening tie. UCD2 managed a disappointing two wins from five after a strong start on day one. On Sunday, UCD1’s fortunes did improve slightly with a win against UCC1, but a demoralis-ing defeat to youth team Schull

– who represented Ireland in the World Championships in August

– left them with three wins from seven for their event.

EquestrianUCD Equestrian won the Na-tional Tetrathlon Intervarsities last weekend for the fifth year in a row. The competition, held this year in Tipperary, consists of running, swimming, shooting and riding, with points accumulating over each discipline, leading up to the final round of riding on the final day.

Vee got the power

i started racing Vees following a seven-year spell racing radio-controlled cars in ireland, the uK and occasionally at

european events. i’d been to the europe-an Championships four times, in France, italy, Monaco, and slovenia, and i’d done enough travelling to the uK to win the under-16 Championship over there.

technically, it was fantastic – the cars got to 105 km/hr in less than two seconds, and we rebuilt them after every race. unfortunately, it never got the support it needed, so there weren’t enough pur-pose-built tracks and facilities in ireland.

along with some friends, my dad and i got heavily involved in trying to promote the racing, and to use that publicity to raise funds to build more tracks, but the noise of the two-stroke engines was a pretty big issue when it came to finding suitable locations.

by the end of 2010, i’d won the irish National Championship for the second year in a row, and was looking for some-thing different. the Formula Vee class is a single-seater series running in ireland, australia, across the us and in the uK. it’s a really competitive class, and less expensive than higher formulae because it uses some Volkswagen road-car parts, and you can do most of the work yourself.

i started racing in the class in 2011, and though it didn’t all go smoothly, i had a good year. i claimed six wins in

the Novice category, and won the wind-storm Novice Championship. i started off with the intention of winning races outright, but although my qualifying results were strong, i had three non-finishes in races early-on in the season. that didn’t help me score points in the National Championship, so i ended-up eighth out of twenty-five competitors at the end of the year.

the class had its annual “away” race in July, at donington Park in the uK. it

was a bit of a turning-point in the season, as i took the lead for the first time after starting from sixth. unfortunately, it only lasted two laps before i was overtak-en again and finished fifth, but i’d gotten the experience of competing at the front. i built on that, and later in the season, i earned a second-place finish in Kirkis-town, Northern ireland.

i tried to do as much racing as possible, as i couldn’t get the experience i needed

by just testing, so i did two events in dif-ferent single-seater categories during the year. over one weekend in June, i competed in two Formula sheane races, which was the first time i got to try a car with wider tyres, wings and a bigger, 1.8 litre engine.

in september, i competed in the Martin donnelly trophy in a 1992 For-mula Ford, which was fantastic. the race-gearbox took some getting used to, but with the help of ex-Formula 3 driver,

bernard dolan, i was able win the “Pre-‘93” class and was awarded “driver of the day” for my overall fifth place finish.

both of these events were steep learn-ing curves, but because of them, i’m better-prepared for 2012. i’m looking forward to next year a lot, and i’m glad to have the opportunity to build on my 2011 results, and try to win the National Championship.

there are three students in second year Mechanical engineering in uCd who either have been or are currently involved in irish motorsport. after win-ning Mondello Park’s “become a racing driver” competition, sean Hynes – who was racing in the Formula sheane series during 2011 – is someone i’ve spent a lot of time at the track with. He too had a strong first season, and now both of us are in the same situation, trying to source sponsorship for a second attempt at the championships.

sean Cleary won the incredibly-pop-ular “F1 in schools” competition in 2009, and Mark Keane has been very success-ful on irish Karting scene, finishing sec-ond in the irish under-17 Championship.

right now, my dad and i are stripping-down and rebuilding the Vee chassis be-fore we begin testing in late February. i think the Vees are the right class to be in at the moment – the number of entries is usually high (thirty-two cars lined-up on the grid for the Leinster trophy meeting in september) and with changes like a switch from avon to dunlop tyres for the whole field, things will be mixed-up a bit.

the eleven-round 2012 Champion-ship will be taking place in Mondello Park, County Kildare, in Kirkistown and bishopscourt, County down, and in the Phoenix Park, County dublin.

It’s a really competitive class, and less expensive than higher formulae

because it uses some Volkswagen road-car parts, and you can do most

of the work yourself

Worst Suit: Sepp Blatterwhile the badger acknowledges how hilariously awful Dwight yorke’s suits are, they are not nearly as bad as the corporate suit that is sepp blatter. the man has become a walking joke. As if his name, which just sounds like some kind of urinary tract infection, wasn’t already a punch line, he is also President of a corporation that is completely out of touch with the public and riddled with allegations of corruption and bribery. And what has blatter done exactly? He has managed to correct football’s equivalent of affirmative action, the awarding of the 2022 world Cup to Qatar, by enlightening the world with his view on how on-pitch racism should be dealt with. His ‘shake hands and be men’ philosophy is a lot like blatter: old, dated and condemned by everybody.

v

Best Hair: Wayne Rooneynot since samson has hair had more supernatural power. wayne rooney’s nightmare 2010/2011 season was left behind him with the insertion of his hair plugs, which led to an upshot in his form for this season. the badger still thinks he looks like a chav on dole day, but his miracle hair cannot be denied. And remember, he’s beaten Jerry Flannery to the best Hair award; the man may have calves like veal chops, but the badger respects his hair.

Worst Jeans: Paul Galvinwith jeans so tight they’d make noel Fielding cry, the badger at least knows he’s not alone in his disliking of Paul Galvin. but maybe, for once, the badger is being harsh; Paul Galvin does provide a useful service in the world. in his weekly column in the Irish Independent, he shows men how to look absolutely ridiculous in designer clothes. where would the Kerry bench be, and what would the CCCC do all year, without him? He has also provided the fashion industry with a test subject to identify how much strain the male genital area can take from skinny jeans.

This week, the badger follows in Paul galvin’s footsteps, and writes about fashion

Fourth year Mechanical Engineering student, Ian Campbell, writes for Observer Sport about his experience racing Formula vee cars in Ireland

Ian Campbell racing in the Formula Ford this year

Ian Campbell, in car 24, racing in the Formula Sheane this year

The University Observer · 29 November 2011 19spOrT

rOsell’s eurOpean shake-upBarcelona President and Eu-

ropean Club Association (ECA) vice-Chairman, San-

dro Rosell has come under scru-tiny recently for his ideas on the structure of European competi-tions. At the recent Aspire4Sport Conference in Doha, Qatar he claimed that if UEFA and the ECA could not reach an agreement on UEFA Competitions and interna-tional fixtures before their memo-randum of understanding expires in 2014, then the ECA may be forced to break away from UEFA, forming its own pan-European competition.

This is a complete red herring and Rosell knows it.

Barcelona are facing an am-biguous financial future. On the home front, the duopoly of Bar-celona and Real Madrid is under threat. Currently these two sides are able to negotiate their own television and media deals. Be-ing the two largest clubs, they are able to capture sixty per cent of the incoming revenue.

This has caused friction amongst the smaller sides in La Liga. These clubs have begun an-gling for a move to a co-operative negotiating system similar to that of the Premier League, a move that the recently elected People’s Party favours. While this move may significantly enhance the fi-nancial power of the smaller La Liga sides, it would eat into Bar-celona’s revenue streams.

Barcelona have also noted, with concern, that wealthy owners have turned their attention away from the saturated English market and are starting to pick up clubs in Spain, such as Malaga.

Domestic financial worries are not the only factor concerning Barcelona’s number crunchers. On the international side, Barcelo-na fear the rise of clubs in England

Gordon O’Callaghan examines barcelona President Sandro Rosell’s proposal to change domestic and European football

Sandro Rosell (right) in Qatar at the Aspire4Sport conference

that are controlled by owners with almost limitless resources.

Rosell recently defiantly claimed that his club would nev-er go the way of English sides, preaching that the ownership model imposed by Barcelona is the only sustainable model in football.

While he may be correct on this front, it does not hide his club’s insecurities in terms of competing on a fair financial footing. Man-chester City recently demonstrat-ed, by signing a massive sponsor-ship deal with Eithad Airways, the relative ease that they have when it comes to side-stepping UEFA’s

new financial fair play rules.These concerns have led Bar-

celona to reconsider revenue streams that they had previously considered beneath them. The signing of their first commercial shirt sponsorship, trips to China in order to build closer commer-cial relationships, as well as shift-ing kick-off times to better suit viewers in Asia, are signs that Barcelona and Spanish football are growing increasingly nervous about their ability to compete fi-nancially.

Financial parity was clearly the motivation for Rosell when he spoke at the Aspire4Sport con-

ference, but what did he hope to achieve?

He proposed that Champi-ons League fixtures, from the quarter-finals stage, at the lat-est, should be shifted to week-end time slots and that domestic league games shifted to mid-week. A reduction in the number of teams competing in Seria A, La Liga and the Premiership from twenty to sixteen in order to ac-commodate a larger Champions League, as well as a reduction in the international fixtures list, was proposed by Rosell.

This is clearly a high ball tac-tic from the Barcelona President.

There is absolutely no chance that the Rosell could convince the Pre-mier League, Serie A or even La Liga to reduce to sixteen teams. Richard Scudamore, the Chief Ex-ecutive of the Premier League has already come out and rubbished the idea.

Realistically, Rosell is hop-ing that he can strong-arm both UEFA and La Liga into a compro-mise position on the structure of both domestic TV revenue and the Champions League, so as to best increase Barcelona’s revenue streams.

Regarding La Liga, Rosell is us-ing the threat of moving Champi-ons League football to the week-end (a much more lucrative time slot) in order to secure a better deal. As for UEFA, Rosell recog-nises that this is where the mon-ey lies and therefore he wants to maximise its potential by manoeu-vring UEFA and other major Euro-pean teams into a position where they will agree to shift Champions League fixtures after the group stages or quarter-finals, into the weekend time slots. A precedent for this has already been set, with the final shifting to Saturday night for the past two years.

There is a third aspect to this and that is the amount of interna-tional fixtures there are currently in the calendar, an issue that is particularly contentious in Spain. Rosell does not believe that he can get a reduction in the number of league teams in Spain, England and Italy, but feels that by raising the issue a reduction in the num-ber of international fixtures may be viewed as reasonable compro-mise.

Despite the loud heckling of the English public and media, Rosell’s actions have shown him as a shrewd manoeuvrer and calculat-ing businessman.

A series of shortcomingsMartin Johnson’s resignation

as the English Rugby Union manager brought to an end

a three-year tenure that culminated in an awful World Cup campaign. Sympathy for him may be lacking from this side of the Irish Sea, espe-cially given Johnson’s actions at the 2003 Grand Slam decider at Lans-downe Road, but recent events have created an element of pity for the man that led England to World Cup glory in 2003.

Appointed in 2008, the RFU took a huge gamble by appoint-ing Johnson, who had virtually no coaching experience. They banked on his outstanding reputation as a leader and the respect that he commanded from the English play-ers and media alike, to take him over any managerial hurdles. Not only did this gamble backfire from a rugby perspective, but a report leaked to the Times has shown there to be something rotten at the core of English Rugby.

The RFU’s relationship with the media has reached an all-time low, which was especially highlighted by the events in Queenstown and in the English team hotel, when Mike Tindall, Dylan Hartley and Chris Ashton allegedly made sexist remarks to a hotel maid. The disci-pline exhibited by Johnson on this evidence was non-existent, as he tried to cover up the incident rather than deal with it. Ill discipline was a feature of England under Johnson, but why was it that he was not able to keep control of his players?

A possible reason for this is that Johnson was friends and former teammates with several members

of the 2011 World Cup team, which undermined his overall authority as their superior. As a player, Johnson was a leader by example. As a man-ager, he could only be a ‘do-as-I-say’ type of leader. Johnson surely struggled to impose his influence on the English rugby squad when he wasn’t able to physically lead from the front.

The circumstances of Johnson’s resignation were bizarre to say the least. He told the media that he was resigning, before any decision he might have made was taken out of his own hands, the implication be-

ing that he jumped before he was pushed. The RFU are clearly look-ing for scapegoats to distract at-tention from themselves following the disastrous events in New Zea-land. Top of their list would have been Johnson and English skip-per Mark Tindall, who has been re-moved from the Elite Player Squad and fined £25,000.

Why was the same punishment not also dealt to Hartley and Ash-ton? Possibly because Tindall is nearing the end of his playing days while Hartley and Ashton should be reaching their prime in the next

Matthew Morrow looks at Martin Johnson’s tenure and legacy as England manager

Martin Johnson has had contrasting fortunes as a player and a manager for England

World Cup cycle, and Tindall had too much negative publicity sur-rounding him following his exten-sive partying in New Zealand.

The World Cup was a neat sum-mary of Johnson’s managerial ca-reer; average though often poor rugby, but with more focus on off-field matters. Even his Six Nations win earlier this year was in some ways a failure, since the team failed to secure a Grand Slam, despite possessing the best squad in that season’s Six Nations.

Several prominent coaches have either declared their interest in be-ing the next England manager or ruled themselves out of the posi-tion. Frankly, one would have to question why you would want to work for an organisation in as much disarray as the RFU, which was re-cently embroiled in ‘hush money payments’ to the hotel maid who had sexist remarks made to her by players.

Candidates who have ruled themselves out include World Cup-winning coach Graham Henry, for-mer Italy and South Africa coach Nick Mallett and Jake White, South Africa’s 2007 World Cup coach. The current favourite is Northamp-ton’s Jim Mallinder, whose reputa-tion has not been dented by his side’s poor start in the Heineken Cup. Mallinder’s CV includes fifteen games won for the English Saxons, as well as leading Northampton to the Heineken Cup Final last year, where they were ultimately over-powered in the second half by a rampant Leinster side.

Former Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan has also expressed an

interest in the post. Whether he would be given the same control as he had when in charge of Ire-land, or if the RFU will introduce a reduced-power manager situation after Johnson, is up for debate.

The third candidate to declare himself interested is former Austra-lian coach Eddie Jones, although he is definitely considered an outsider. There is a strong possibility that the former All Black John Kirwan will take the job on a temporary basis, whilst the RFU sorts out its internal matters. Kirwan has publicly stated that it would be an honour to work with the RFU, and that ongoing is-sues are not of his concern. Kirwan has a reputation for being a straight talker, which is perhaps what the RFU and English players are in des-perate need of at the moment.

“Barcelona and Spanish football

are growing increasingly

nervous about their ability to compete financially”

“Johnson surely struggled to impose his leadership on the English rugby squad when he wasn’t able to physically lead from the front”

The University Observer · 29 November 201120

Galwegians Rise Above Weakened UCD Side

ObserverS P O R T

UCD RFU Galwegians

13 26

Action from the UCD vs Galwegians match on Saturday. Photographer: Caoimhe McDonnell

inside...We examine Sandro Rosell’s proposal to change football

page 19

The Badger presents his end of year fashion awards

page 18

Ian Campbell, writes about racing Formula Vee cars

page 18

uCd came off the back of an em-phatic victory over their biggest ri-vals, dublin university (trinity) last

week in the Colours match and went into this fixture against the galway outfit with an air of confidence. Collidge have had a mixed season so far and their results match their performances: inconsistent.

uCd made several changes to the side which overcame trinity last week, with da-vid Lynch and david Kenny both injured; also missing was last week’s star performer, sam Coughlan Murray.

galwegians have been in fine form of late, having beaten dungannon two weeks ago, a team who crushed uCd on the open-ing weekend of the season. both sides had to deal with the difficult windy conditions in the belfield bowl; despite the weather, there was a decent crowd in attendance.

there were positive signs for galwegians early on when a missed kick set them up in a promising field position to attack the uCd defence. galwegians were penalised soon afterwards, which led to Collidge counter-attacking to their opponents’ 22, only to be penalised as well. Having secured clean ball in the ruck, the galway club attacked with conviction only to be halted by a knock-on.

Collidge then began to gather momen-tum and the students were testing the de-fence of their opponents time and time again. Niall earls showed early on why he is one of the top-rated out-halves in the league with a marvellous kick to touch. uCd’s andy boyle almost played in tom Fletcher, only for the winger to knock-on.

it was on the eighteenth minute mark when the deadlock was broken as galwe-

London Calling

gians’ brian Murphy fed barry Lee with a precise pass into the corner which was con-verted by Matthew Jarvis, to make it 7-0 to the visitors.

the home team responded through the boot of Niall earls, who landed a penalty from 60 metres out. earls’ fine kicking abil-ity was on show throughout the match and he was the only player who looked like he might turn the game for uCd.

approaching the half-time mark, it was the galway club who were in the driving seat and they made possession count when Kyle tonetti touched down to make it 12-3, after Jarvis missed the conversion.

a kick from earls on the stroke off half

time was sent over to make it 12-6. the first was far from a classic, with both sides fight-ing hard but galwegians coming out the stronger.

the second-half started off horribly for uCd when barry Lee touched down for galwegians in the first minute after a seri-ous lack of concentration from the Collidge defence. Jarvis added the extra two, to make it 19-6, as the game steadily began to slip out of uCd’s grasp.

the absence of Coughlan Murray was evident, as Collidge struggled to create many opportunities in the backs. richie bent came on for uCd in the hope of changing the game, but had little impact. galwegians de-

fence held firm, showing determination and grit to maintain their lead. on the sixty-third minute, uCd’s misery was compounded when brian Murphy went over, with Jarvis converting the kick to make it 26-6.

a glimmer of hope appeared for uCd in the thirty-third minute when Michael twomey touched down to make it 26-13 with the conversion from earls.

the last ten minutes became quite stag-nant and it was clear that the late twomey try was merely a blip in what was an em-phatic win for the galway side. it was a dis-appointing defeat for uCd after a morale boosting victory last weekend, but galwe-gians were deserved winners.

galwegians enjoyed a double-score victory over a low-strength UCD in belfield, writes Aaron Kennedy

UCD’s David Campbell talks to Aaron Kennedy about setting his sights on the 2012 Olympics

twenty-nine-year-old david Campbell is one of uCd’s olympic hopefuls for London

2012. He competes over varying disciplines, primarily the 800 metre and 1500 metre track run.

Nearly a year ago, he had two surgeries on his back which kept him out of racing for some time, but he has since started to get back to full fitness. “back’s feeling great now, it really took about a year for the back and hips to settle after the two surgeries. it was a tough enough year but i am back on track now,” says Campbell. “training is kicking along nicely, i’m about four months into it after starting in august.”

His weekly routine is a vigorous one, as he is running at the highest of standards in athletics: “Monday i go for a morning run and then in the evening i go for a run as well, five miles in the morning and seven miles in the evening. tuesday i go for five miles in the morning and eight in the evening and a track on a wednesday and a hill session on the weekend.”

His main plans for next summer are focused solely on competing in the olympics, and he is looking to use the european Championships in Finland as a platform to prepare himself for the bigger task ahead.

“the main goal is the olympic games at the start of august in London - everything is building towards the olympics. there’s also the european Championships at the end of June in Helsinki, so that will be nice preparation along the way.”

Campbell’s confidence levels are high after coming back from injury and he has no doubts about his qualification for the games next summer when he runs the standard in May or June.

Currently in second year Physiotherapy, Campbell balances his training with one of the most demanding courses in the university. the course helps him better understand every facet of his sport, improving on his knowledge from being a sports massage therapist: “i’m really looking forward to [progressing further in the course].

it’ll really open up my eyes to areas of physiotherapy i wouldn’t have thought about before.”

He plans to go to australia after Christmas, to train with some of the top coaches in athletics: “i’ll have a good group to train with down there. sonia o’sullivan’s husband, Nick bideau, has a group of some of the best distance runners in the world down there; some australians, some british guys and some americans. the facilities are very good there; we do a lot of the training up the mountains for the month and then in Melbourne, where the facilities are second to none.”

the athletics facilities down under are an exciting prospect for david, giving him a chance to train with some of the best athletes in the world, as well as giving him a welcome retreat from an irish winter.

the recent closure of the running track has evoked outrage among the uCd athletics Club and many others. the track in uCd has closed due to health and safety concerns, leaving

the club and members of the public frustrated with the lack of athletics facilities on campus.

Campbell is left puzzled as to how this has happened. He has used the track regularly for many years and is dismayed that these benefits have been taken away from athletes, as well as the public and uCd students. “i’m just confused by the motives,” says Campbell. “we’re on the verge of an epidemic of obesity in ireland right now: diabetes, heart problems, and the biggest remedy for all these problems is exercise. the biggest university in ireland has taken away a facility that the whole of south-county dublin has been using for forty years.”

“it’s accessible to everybody, even if you had never ran in your life, you would know that the belfield [athletics track] is there. it’s an institution; it’s the heartbeat of the college.”

Campbell’s passion for athletics is obvious, but he notes that he might have quit the sport seven years ago were it not for James Nolan, Head athletics Coach at uCd, who Campbell says has been one of the most inspirational people involved in his career. “i guess without James i wouldn’t be running today. He gave me a lot of confidence when i was younger, and kept me in the sport when i nearly fell out of it at around twenty-two”.

Campbell’s determination is self-evident, and it would be no surprise if the young athlete continues to succeed on his path to London 2012.