Familiar faces return but female representation remains an issue
As UCC prepares to go to the polls on March 9th and 10th, several familiar faces will appear on the ballot as two sitting sabbatical officers, the current Council Chair and a number of College Reps and former candidates all seek election.With a total of 14 candidates across the five sabbatical positions, this year’s elections are set to be tightly contested. However women are again under-represented among the candidates as, despite the introduction of a Women in Leadership Summit, only three of the 14 are female. Of the three runners, Siobhan Callaghan, Katie Quinlan and Hannah Eames, the latter two will compete against each other for the position of Welfare Officer.Quinlan and Eames, who are also competing against Denis Savage, would become the first female Welfare Officer since Rebecca Murphy, who held the position during the 2009/10 academic year, if elected. Meanwhile O’Callaghan will square off with James Upton, who ran for the same position 12 months ago, and Cormac Molloy. O’Callaghan would become just the second female Deputy President and Campaigns Officer since the position was reintroduced in 2008, if elected, following on from Annie Hoey who held the position last year.Upton isn’t the only former candidate seeking election as Art Kelleher, who ran for the position of College of Medicine Rep last year, will this year compete in the for the same position. This year, however, Kelleher is unopposed in the race, meaning he is almost guaranteed the role.After the withdrawal of former Comms Officer candidate Joel Carey, who left the race after falling ill, competing for the position of President are Eolann Sheehan, George Gill and current Student Council chairperson Aidan Coffey. If Coffey is elected he would be the first person to successfully move from the position of Council Chair to a sabbatical SU position since former Education Officer Cat O’Driscoll.As part of his campaign Coffey is running a ticket along with current education officer Joe Kennedy, a move seldom seen in UCCSU elections. However Kennedy is not the only current SU officer seeking re-election, as Barry Nevin, the Communications and Commercial Officer, is also seeking to maintain his position.The path towards achieving this goal is slightly less crowded for Nevin, who faces only one opposing candidate. Cathal Walsh, a current Masters student who has managed the social media accounts for the New Bar this year, is contesting Nevin for the Comms position, arguing that he can offer a fresh perspective on UCCSU negotiations. Kennedy, however, will face two opponents in his re-election bid, Shane O’Sullivan and current College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences Rep Ian Hutchinson.Of the three candidates for Entertainments Officer only two, Dane Moriarty and Sophie Olsthoorn, would take the position on a full-time basis and in doing so receive a salary of €10,500 for the position. The third candidate, Adam Finn, believes that by taking the position as a part-time role, if elected, he would be more in touch with what students want and what acts they would like to see on campus.Regardless of the results in the sabbatical elections, there is guaranteed to be one woman sitting at SU Executive meetings next year as Sarah Dunphy and Maria O’Sullivan compete for the position of Business & Law College Rep. Only 2 of the 4 college rep positions will see a contested election this year, the second being the SEFS race where Alan Draddy and Billy McCarthy are competing for the position.