USI Affiliation Referendum in NCI

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Wednesday April 07, 2004 15:03

by Ian McGahon - NCI Student

Because of the increase in USIs affiliation fee to €5 there are now affiliation referendums happening in colleges around the country. This was expected in many colleges but the most surprising is that of NCI. The disafillaition campaign is being run by Bob Quinn, who is an NCI Student, a former NCISU President, a former PD General election candidate and a member of the equality authority of Ireland

Why does he want to disaffiliate?

It's complicated:

These are some of the reasons which Bob stated last week at an NCISU EGM which I am summarizing

* USI is a farce and is not representative of students

* USI was responsible for stopping the reintroduction of fees - Mary Harney was

* USI has never done anything for NCI students

* Why should NCI "waste" €9000 euros on this organisation

* The increase of €5 is a lot to ask students

* The USI Officer Board Never visit NCI

* NCISU can form alliances outside of USI with other individual unions

* The financial situation/debts etc are appaling

* The motions put forward at USI congress show that USI is "a farce"

* USI is full of sabbaticals with inflated egos

* There were other reasons but I cant remember averything that was said

What do I personally think?

# USI is 250,000 students it is not people 15 people sitting in an office in Grattan street saying how will we fight against student rights

# People are very quick to knock USI yet when it comes to doing anything positive to change the oprganisation they just step back

# Direct student action meant that tuition fees were not reintroduced.

# €5 is very cheap for national student representation

# There is no alternative to USI

# I have been a student in NCI for 6 years and have seen the hard work that USI has done on NCIs behalf

# I am proud to be a member of USI

In closing I would like to quote Taragh Donohoe the former Student President of NCI

"Ask not what USI can do for you, Ask what you can do for USI"

ps: One thing that mystified me. Mr Quinn claimed that when he was President he set up an alliance between IT Tallaght and NCI and St Pats. If Brendan Ferron is reading this could you let me know if thats true

pps: Any colleague of Bobs who is reading this you can tell him I consider this article to be very kind and I could have been much more critical