buy viagra serif;”>The UCD Students’ Union have announced the launch of the “Gilmore 250” campaign. The campaign has the aim of asking the question, no rx where will students be able to get two hundred and fifty euro extra each year until 2015.
order serif;”>A public meeting will take place on November 7th in the Stillorgan park hotel at which students can question public representatives, who will be in attendance, on how they intend to support students in the future. It is not yet clear as to which public representatives will be attending the meeting.
Rachel Breslin, President of UCD Students’ Union, says that the sabbatical officers have taken a lot into consideration with regard to how a national campaign should be run. The aim of UCDSU is to “maintain the current level of contribution, with the ultimate aim of eroding it,” said Breslin.
In a UCD preferendum last year, UCD students decided that a student contribution charge was the best way of funding college services. The final vote on behalf of students bore the result of students preferring the current method of student contribution. However, Breslin makes it clear that the result of that process didn’t give concrete answers, “I don’t think that anybody at the start of that process expected that contribution would win, so the definition was very vague…I would interpret it that it was people voting for the status quo, what’s happening at the minute.” The sabbatical officers brought the question to Council as to whether the current level of contribution should be maintained and now they have a mandate for this year according to Breslin.
The student contribution charge has increased from roughly €900 in 2009 to €2,250 this year and Breslin says that “there is an argument that everyone should be paying their dutiful contribution to society…but it’s quite clear that students have paid above the odds for that.”
UCDSU are seeking to meet Tanaíste Eamon Gilmore and Breslin claims that Minister for education Ruarí Quinn is, in this instance, deflecting blame for the €250. She feels that it is likely that the €250 increase will come in and if it does “that will make our campaign stronger. It’s a lot harder to fight something that hasn’t been introduced yet.” UCDSU will be escalating their campaign after the budget because “people will say enough is enough,” says Breslin.
If the contribution is upped it will be difficult to get students out to campaign admits Breslin but she feels that she would be doing a disservice to her successors if she stopped the campaign. She says that the campaign must continue beyond December 6th, the day on which the budget will be officially launched.
