Deputy candidates suggest ways to maximise the Student Voice

With a general election on the horizon, a key goal for the three potential Deputy President and Campaigns Officers for the next academic year is to maximise the strength of the student voice and ensure that it is heard by sitting and prospective TDs.As part of the effort to mobilise students, James Upton, a Masters of Politics student, would push for voter registration drives to take place during orientation, ensuring students are immediately made aware of the role in national politics. “My plan would be to have the community Garda or a member of An Garda Síochana on campus so that when students come out of registering with the college, they’d then be registered to vote in conjunction with the Students’ Union.”Siobhán Callaghan, a Final Year BA International student who has also proposed voter registration drives as part of her manifesto, argued, however, that such a step is not enough. Referencing the poor turnout in the recent USI and Marriage Equality referenda in UCC, O’Callaghan argued that making students aware “we have a voice and we do have a role in changing society” will be crucial.This idea of political education was central to getting students to jump from registering to actually voting for Cormac Molloy, a final year Law Student. Whilst acknowledging that voter registration drives will be crucial, highlighting “what each political party offers to the student” is the best way “to get students engaged and interested” in national politics.In addition to strengthening the student voice through registration drives, all three candidates believe that the SU needs to make a larger effort in the future to bring campaigns to UCC’s satellite campuses, as well as getting students based off of the main campus involved in campaigns.Callaghan believes that past Unions had fallen into the trap of believing that students based in satellite campuses were less willing to engage with protests due to their workloads. “We need to bring up the failure of the Students’ Union to engage students from satellite campuses. We’re told that students in Brookfield, who want to be doctors and dentists and nurses are too busy. Whereas if you speak to those students individually they tell you ‘we’d love to’.”Molloy argued that this failure had only served to weaken the student voice on a national level, and further disenfranchise students who are not based on the main campus from the SU. In addition to visiting satellite campuses if elected, Molloy would push for the elected reps from the College of Medicine and SEFS to become more involved in campaigning, and telling them “to get their students involved.”Having served as the auditor of the LGBT* Society this year, Upton believes he has proven experience in bringing campaigns directly to these students and getting them involved. “We registered 144 students down in Brookfield and when they come out of lectures and see the stand they light up.” Upton also wishes to establish an ‘Activist Academy’ if elected, which he feels would allow students with an interest in campaigns to come together, and in doing so would remind people that “the SU isn’t just the 5 sabbatical officers it is 19000 students bordering on 20000.”