No to USI Campaign Interview
As part of the USI Referendum coverage the UCC Express sat down with Rob Cas – No to USI Campaigner and UCC Student to discuss why he opposes re-affiliation.An interview with Yes campaign representatives is available here.
Overall, how do you feel about the first day of campaigning?
It’s going really well. I’ve been doing class announcements because that, realistically, is the only way we can campaign on a mass level because we can’t afford leaflets and we can’t afford to take time out of lectures which is something that USI has to its advantage. From conversations I’ve been having with students who have caught me as I’m leaving one of their lectures, or who have just seen me about after they vote, they believe we are making very valid points. A lot of them don’t see any tangible benefit from USI and so they’re wondering just what they get from it.
"We can’t afford leaflets and we can’t afford to take time out of lectures which is something that USI has to its advantage."
A big issue with this referendum was financial transparency and the USI ultimately decided to make last year’s budget available online. What do you make of this decision?People have been asking for USI’s budgets for months and months, even years, so why is it only now in the days before a referendum that they decide to publish them. We can’t have had enough time to look through them and properly scrutinise them. What I did do was have a quick look through their proposed budget for the year 2014/15 and what they showed me is that they’re spending roughly €35,000 on Fresher and Shag packs. That’s on a national level. If you look at it in terms of how they actually spend this money on a national level they have to provide for, I think, 30 different third level institutions so how much of that is UCC getting. Their big thing is that we got 3,000 Freshers packs and 3,000 SHAG packs. First of all, I haven’t seen them. I packed Freshers packs and I saw a calendar from USI in there and if they’re spending €35,000 on that then that’s farcical.A central part of the No campaign has been the idea that the money spent on being a USI member could be used to solve issues more pertinent to UCC students. However, is there any guarantee UCC students would ever see that money? What’s to stop the university absorbing it or telling UCC students what it would be spent on?What I would envisage is that the UCC Students’ Union would for the €86,000 in affiliation fees. However, you can certainly save a minimum of €30,000 because we spend that on training and congress trips, so that’s immediately €30000 that can be used more effectively by our Students’ Union by cutting out this middle man. USI are talking about how they’re costs are way, way down. That’s b*llocks. We pay €6,000 to go to congress for what is in effect a piss-up for hacks. As for the larger sum of €86,000, we can fight tooth and nail for it. It [any decision on how to spend the money] would probably be done by preferendum because I believe, though I’m not 100% sure on this, we’ll be having another referendum on a capitation fee increase to fund the new Student Hub. Even then, if we leave USI, we can allocate that money, surely, to more earnest causes for students.
"As for the larger sum of €86,000, we can fight tooth and nail for it."
When the NotoUSI campaign outlined what UCC students could get for the costs of USI membership, the USI argued that the campaign was trying to spend the money nine-times over. What do you make of this claim?I’m not pretending that we can have everything that we [the no campaign] have outlined. We can’t have it all, but what we can do is have a conversation with students and work out just what it is we need. One of the points we made was that €120,000 was equal to three additional doctors. However, what if we just had one additional doctor who focused primarily on sexual health because, as you know, with Student Health Services right now if you want to get an STI check you can only get it on a Friday morning. For a college with 20,000 students we need to be able to have proper access to this at all times.Do you feel the new regulations, passed by UCC Students’ Union Council, which sought to limit who could and could not campaign are being enforced?It’s not being enforced properly because just today I saw someone campaigning on campus who has not registered, and was not an alumnus of UCC nor a current student.In closing, are there any other points you would like to raise?
"USI is essentially 8 people in Dublin and Tuesday evening, win or lose, USI are going back to Dublin."
What I would like to ask is that students take into account everything that they’re voting on. Ask themselves who has been there for me in the past? Who was there when I needed extra library hours? Who was there when I needed help with a lecturer? Who was there when I needed counselling? Who was there when I needed the morning –after pill? It has consistently been UCC Students’ Union, UCC Students, and UCC Students’ Services who have been there. USI is essentially 8 people in Dublin and Tuesday evening, win or lose, USI are going back to Dublin and we will probably not see them again.An interview with members of the YestoUSI campaign is available here.