USI & UCDSU Look Forward To General Election

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and the UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) have indicated the role they will be playing in the upcoming General Election.  At the time of going to print, the USI plans to launch a national campaign next Monday, January 31st, with hopes to complete the registrations of 50,000 student voters in time for the General Election.

Gary Redmond , President of USI, revealed to The College Tribune what role the organisation will play. “[Over] the coming weeks we will campaign on every single campus across the country… Our focus for the first two weeks of the campaign beginning on the 31st will be voter registration.”

However Pat de Brún, UCDSU Campaigns and Communications Officer, pointed out: “There is now some difficulty surrounding the whole area of voter registration, due to the uncertainty of how long the government will last.  The events of recent days, with the resignation of Brian Cowen as leader of Fianna Fáil, has thrown things up in the air to an extent, with the possibility of a successful motion of ‘no confidence’ in the government in the coming days. Much of the success of the campaign, both in UCD and nationally, will rest on the timing of the election.”

De Brún stated that if the election date were to take place on 11th March, UCDSU’s “registration campaign will be launching on Monday February 7th, and we will be aiming to register at least 4,000 UCD students to vote. This will be no mean feat, but we are fully committed to what is a hugely important issue.”

Redmond also revealed that representatives from USI will be travelling the across the country in an Obama-style campaign bus, coined as the “USI Election Express”, a method that is normally

only utilized by political candidates themselves. “USI will be running a bus tour ,similar to the way politicians do. We will be visiting every single campus and will be creating a buzz…having a huge amount of media attention on us.”

Redmond promises that there will be plenty of information available on all campuses regarding voter registration and said: “For students who still have to register, they need to get a RFA2 form. Every Students’ Union will have them, and that form needs to be signed by a member of An Gardaí Síochána and sent back to your local authority.”

The USI hope to have a Garda on campus for the fortnight-long voter registration campaign, in order to ensure that students can register without much difficulty.

For students who are already registered to vote but will not be able to make it home to cast their vote, Redmond suggests that they avail of the option of transferring their vote from their local constituency to their Dublin address, or to avail of a postal vote. However the time frame on registering for a postal vote is restricted to 48 hours after an general election is called and the Dáil is dissolved.

“If enough students vote, after the election we will be able to go to politicians and say, ‘Listen, students are interested in politics, they are interested in the future of the country.’ That will give the USI and students’ unions a lot more power, because at the end of the day politicians worry about their vote,” stressed Redmond.

Redmond was asked if this strategy would be effective, as the likely Labour-Fine Gael coalition will have different policies to their individual manifestos, and students may fall victim to broken promises, like those experienced by their counterparts in the UK under the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition.

“Obviously when political parties go into coalition, policies can go out the window, but at the moment we are focusing on students registering to vote, and as it gets closer to elections we will be focusing on policies,” commented Redmond.

By Donie O’Sullivan