Negotiations are currently ongoing between the Students’ Union and UCD over Residential Assistants now being allowed to bring recording equipment into residence dwellings. Mícheál Gallagher, sickness Welfare Officer for UCDSU, health has told the College Tribune that UCD is responding positively to talks, viagra “The negotiations are going quite well at the moment so we hope to have some breakthrough now next week”.
The introduction of Clause 23 into the License to Reside Act 2012-2013,which must be signed by the student before the beginning of the semester, had led to anger from UCDSU who were not informed of the changes made until 3 September. The main issue to highlight, according to Campaigns and Communications Officer Paddy Guiney, “is that no indication or warning was given to the Students’ Union on the introduction of cameras. We were assured last year that this wouldn’t occur”.
Mr Gallagher states that, “Although the Students’ Union was promised to be updated on any kind of developments into the situation, we were blatantly lied to by the college and that’s why they’ve agreed to come back to the negotiation’s table over this particular issue”.
However a spokesperson for UCD has explained that while the Licence to Reside Act for 2011 / 2012 did remain visible on the college’s website over the summer months, the 2012 / 2013 Act which includes Clause 23 had not been changed since becoming available to potential residence candidates during the summer, “No changes were made to the 2012 / 2013 License after bookings were opened in June”.
UCD hopes to ease the fears over entry into residence held by students and UCDSU stating that, “Staff and Residential Assistants must clearly alert everyone in the vicinity of the student apartment when their recording equipment is in use”. They have also stressed that the recorded incidents are only viewed and used as support materials when incidents are investigated under the license to reside or the student code. Mr Gallagher has stated that as of yet, “There hasn’t been any official complaints to the Students’ Union on the usage of recording equipment”.
– Matthew H. Farrelly<
