The UL Grapevine

Early start, y'all

2010-03-11T07:58:00.000Z

It's 8am. No-one is awake. Except for us. The first polling booth opened half an hour ago at 7:30am. As ULSU election rules say that the polls have to be open for 11 hours, this is obviously an early start so that the count can start early and everyone can go home early. It might have been easier to just change the rules but then that would require a quorate meeting. And after the dodgy practices of Student Union meetings under Pa O'Brien's tenure, people are watching that meetings are actually quorate. So maybe changing the rules wasn't an option after all.

Here's a cool thought though. Open the polls at midnight next time and we can close the polls at 11am, all sod off home soon after and have a nice afternoon. It almost removes the need to vote at all.

Predictions as we're doing nothing else:

Wins for:

Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin

Derek Daly

Aoife Finnerty (freebie prediction for everyone)

Lorcan O'Neill

Finn McDuffie

That's all for now.

Hustings '10

2010-03-11T04:06:00.000Z

Hustings managed to slide itself out to almost two hours. We've seen longer hustings, we've seen shorter. But as the room was booked for 8 and hustings began at 6, everyone was getting kicked out of the room after two hours anyway unless they wanted to hang around to watch the Debating Society talk about students and alcohol. Even with it only being about the sixth debate all year the room managed to clear. We couldn't blame them, it's only the Drama Society running nothing for months that's keeping the debaters from scraping the barrell bottom as the biggest waste of UL societies money all year.

Held in the Jonathon Swift hall, the hustings picked up a mostyly full crowd, meaning there were about 130-150 people there. That's not bad. Not good but any more and they'd have been turned away. Then again, booking a room that can only seat 150-odd smacks of resignation that the crowd isn't going to be any bigger. It wouldn't hold a quorate Student Union meeting, though any recent quorate Student Union meetings have been achieved through pretence, lies, bothering people and generally acting the tool. It'd be a good place to hold them then.

Enough, on with what the designated performing monkeys had to say.

Communications:

Again, like last year, the Communications candidates were asked about printing material critical of the SU and again they gave the same sick puppy answer about it not being in the SU's interest to print material that might not say what a truly wonderful job they were doing. We got this last year from the current Comms officer of course. Which we suspect is partly why we don't see articles counting the number of proper campaigns that have been run this year. Then again, when we were taught how to count in school, the nice lady teacher told us to start at one and never explained that we could start at zero. We're not happy with this kind of answer at all. We weren't happy with it last year and we're sure as heck not happy with it this year. Especially as we happened to notice that in 2007/08 (the pre-Aoifes Breen and Ni Raghallaigh era), for one year An Focal was happy enough to carry material that was critical of the Student Union and it was a better paper for it. We seem to recall the thing being short-listed for Newspaper of the Year that year at the Student Media Awards and being self-critical can't have hurt. It was also the only year we remember where even the cynics actually believed the bumpf in the paper as it got a short reputation for being truthful. Then again, the dream died the following year and we're all older and more cynical now.

Asked about radio, O'Brien listed out his experience in running an online radio station for Rag Week, leaving McDuffie with little to do other than stand up and say that when he went to look there weren't very many people listening to it and hence losing the votes of anyone who was interested in radio at all by not saying if there was anything to be done at all at all. It was an obvious question and should have been prepped better by McDuffie.

Ex-Societies officer Darran Savage managed to ask the most incoherent question of the night, spending about three minutes asking a long rambling pile of muck which chair Joe Wallace guessed was something do to with advertising. Would there be more posters? Er, yes, thank you for wasting time by asking. Savage was an appalling Socs officer and we finally got to see how. Synapses on, synapses off. Never to be mixed up, only professionals should touch the on/off button. Take note. Also take note that we didn't insert a ginger joke, which we could well have. No chep shots here, only the multi-syllable expensive ones.

On the whole, O'Brien came across better than McDuffie. His opening speech was far better so we were corect yesterday about public specking not being McDuffie's strong point. Also, while it doesn't affect his ability to do the job, McDuffie sounds and looks 12. O'Brien managed to swap his often-dour exterior for one that actually looked interested. If the crowd was bigger people would have noticed.

Campaigns & Services:

Here's the difference between the two candidates for CSO as we see it. Lorcan O'Neill is believeable. Vivion Grisewood is not. We're not addressing capability, competency or any of that rubbish. Voters don't care about these things (Bertie got re-elected in 2007 after all) so why should we?

There was a pointed question from Steven Carmody about the CSO being perceived to not earn the money. We've no idea whether this was prompted by Carmody being Sharon Brosnan's bit of fluff, the motion that was to be presented to Class Reps Council by Paddy Rockett and a few of the more reputable class reps to dock the wages of the current CSO for in their view doing virtually nothing or just one of those questions you think up while you're sitting there. Either way, Fergal Dempsey probably won't be happy about it. Especially as Carmody was right - that's what people think. That's what we think as well.

The two boyos were asked what campaigns they'd run. Grisewood listed off some, most of which are run by other offices like Education and Welfare and then stopped. When you stop, you sit down, it looks better. You don't stand there and swallow. Well, not in the kind of movies you'd like to show in front of your mother. That gave O'Neill time to stand up and explain things about the campaigns he'd run, make a wise crack that you can protest too much and then no-one cares (obviously pointed at one of the presidential candidates) and manage to use up all of the allocated time and look like he had more to say. O'Neill looked far more comfortable up there than Grisewood did.

Education:

Game over, no-one cares. Aoife Finnerty gave a speech, which she didn't really need to. Apparently the rules say that she had to.

DP/Welfare:

Daniel Reid faltered like a sick pony when the Welfare candidates were asked about how the Welfare office could help out someone in financial difficulty. While Derek Daly stood up first and explained how the Financial Aid fund worked, Reid followed by saying he couldn't do anything but that co-op was great and sure, wasn't getting a good reference from co-op great. We only hope he misheard the question and misunderstood Daly's answer rather than the alternative, which is that the brain monkeys were busy talking about co-op while picking fleas out of each other's backs. The short of it was that Daly was a competent speaker on the night whereas Reid looked as though he was solidly in Forrest Gump swimming pool and gasping for air. It reminded us of that debate between Jed Bartlett and Robert Richie in season 4 of the West Wing. And that part where Bartlett tells Richie "You'll be back"? Richie wasn't, neither will Reid. Where's Alan Alda when you need him?

President:

Any idea of how many students there are in UL? Louise Clohessy is pretty sure it's 12 thousand. It may well be 12 thousand. Almost every time she stood up she mentioned the 12 thousand students in UL? Wanna hear more? 12 thousand. Any idea how repetitive this sounds? 12 thousand by the way. We think it might be closer to 13 but don't tell her. She said the pitches weren't that important to most students. Here's a little secret: she's right, most students don't give a crap. It's something you have to pretend to care about to get votes though Louise dear. Remember that thre next time. Even the dog catcher has to pretend to care about the dogs.

Sharon Brosnan: poor. If she didn't have a campaign team behind her that is significantly bigger than Clohessy's, we'd be slotting her into last place now. She also made a big booboo when she mentioned that she might be inclined to skive off on Wednesday afternoons to go skydiving. Yeah, honey. That's what you get paid to do as student president. She might have been joking but she forgot to laugh or say she was. She's not Jack Dee. She might not have been joking. Right now her campaign manager should be beating her to death with her own shoes.

Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin was highly competent without being accomplished. Of course there are only so many ways to say "I didn't set the building on fire". Then again Paddy Rockett might want to but more of that anon. He explained that the playing fields were going to be sorted by the time the north campus was open. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. And that the security issue in estates was going to be sorted with the next contract renewal. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. Is the level of reporting for our beloved newspaper now so low that stuff the sabbatical officers know beyond the ability of the An Focal writers to sniff out? Please, say it ain't so, bro.

Paddy Rockett is still on his fight the power soapbox (three time we had to type it, we kept on typing spaobox). He'll fight them on the beaches, under the sea, overground, underground, wombling free. While good pal Viv is dependent on Plassey House goodwill to have a big badass lawn party. Somehow we don't quite see the two of those going together well. Especially when Don Barry looks out his office window, sees Rockett permanently there with a banner and opens the window to shout "Sod off, you langer!" He's from Cork you know. They talk funny down there. We're half surprised he didn't finish every answer with a clenched Black Panther fist. Though, because he ran out of time every time, he kept talking on his way to reseat himself so maybe he forgot. Revolutionaries sometimes forget to actually bury the bodies so they don't have to remember where they're buried. That's the IKEA approach to revolutions. Advertise big, pack it away neatly.

Nick Ryan is a heck of a nice chap. We might have said that earlier. He talked about his time in Austria, which must be the greatest location on earth. He was on erasmus in Graz and brought home the idea of vending machine pharmacies, which he said was the one thing he'd do if he could only do one thing. Incidentally Arnold Schwarzenegger came from Graz. We're just saying. Competent speaker. And a heck of a nice chap who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Though we did hear on the dicky bird line that Nick threatened Paddy Rockett with a court case earlier in the day. Seems the Rockett campaign has tired of annoying the students and is now switching to the candidates. Upward and onward. We were hoping for a fist-fight but we never get what we want. A bike, a poke and a surprise, please Santa, since you're wondering.

Roundup:

What did we take from all this? Not a lot really. Some candidates managed to go down severly in our estimation (Reid and Brosnan in particular), some managed to go up slightly (O'Brien and Daly in particular). We'd have given something valuable for a good fight or something. Ten rounds but you'll only need three, that kind of thing. Winner gets all the lollipops and 400 free votes on election day. It'd be more fun.

Did it change our view of the results? Ryan might do better in the presidential race than we thought. Nothing significant though. It's still Dillon-McLoughlin's game.

Things have changed...

2010-03-10T16:20:00.000Z

In most Irish colleges when it comes to elections, candidates with little imagination of their own tend to rip off designs from elsewhere. Cartoons have been a popular choice, with the Simpsons and Family Guy becoming firm favourites for people who don't know any better.

At UL it's been different for a few years as the Student Union have to approve all election material and SU staff members have usually laid down a no fist on anything that might rip off someone else's trademark or creation. Two years ago, the entire campaign plan of one candidate for Education Officer had to be thrown out when they didn't like candidate Diarmuid Healy using Time Magazine's look for his campaign, down to replicating the front page as a poster. Bad boy Healy was sent away to get the permission of Time Warner to use their look. Good luck with that mate.

So we're a bit confused that Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's campaign is allowed to rip off the BBC by repeatedly using images of speedy driver The Stig in his campaign, from multiple posters down to creating a facebook profile that purports to be The Stig supporting him. And Finn McDuffie's campaign using the Duff beer logo from the Simpsons, actually licensed by Fox to a beer maker who makes real Duff beer (you can buy it in the Stables).

The BBC tend to sue when their stuff is ripped off. Fox are even worse for it. Neither company is a fan of their intellectual rights being ripped off by a crowd of opportunistic students. Fox sued a public service creche in the US last year when they put a picture of Bart Simpson on the wall. While the SU may think they're immune from this, it still makes us wonder. Is this stuff only approved for the candidates they like?

Questions, questions... probably not going to be answered as long as the results are what they want...

Note that we edited a name out of this post as on mature thought we decided it wasn't fair to point the finger at one person in particular.

How things are falling

2010-03-10T16:02:00.000Z

Over half way through the campaigning, still a lot to play for but here's how we see things going at the moment:

President:

Ruan Dillon McLoughlin has his posse out and they're hopping around houses and courtyards as though there's no tomorrow. Paddy Rockett's posse is doing likewise but they're being far more annoying about it and that tends to turn people off. People who have friends and talk to them. Which Rockett might be running out of by the end of the week, despite a few extra votes to be picked up from it. Nick Ryan's sticking in there but doesn't look like he's holding the pace, there just isn't the buzz around his campaign that he needs to hold the line. Sharon Brosnan and Louise Clohessy are beginning to look like also-rans by now. While Brosnan is apparently going to skydive on to the campus at noon tomorrow, she might be better off staying on the ground and asking people for a few votes. Clohessy is looking like a solid last. While both female candidates are likely to pick up a small number of women voting for women votes, some women just won't vote for their peers and men, especially UL men, are far more backward abot the notion of women being in power. It's beginning to look like Dillon McLoughlin's game to win or lose.

DP/Welfare:

Derek Daly is apparently making an effort to keep answering queries during this week as part of his current DP/Welfare job, which should place him at a bit of a time disadvantage. The way we're calling this one so far though is that he's so much more electable than Daniel Reid, who waited until the last minute to decide which job he was going to run for. Based on some of the postings over on the boards.ie UL forum from his supporters, we're surprised he isn't at home collecting funds for Haiti rather than campaigning. It's a Daly ball by the looks of things.

Education:

This match was over last Friday, remember?

CSO:

This one is likely to be tight. It depends on how many people are annoyed by the Rockett campaign and how swift they are to associate Vivion Grisewood with his clone friend. Sorry, ticket colleague. Sorry, coincidentally similar manifesto and campaign buddy. Grisewood's campaign team may look grumpy (and they are) but they're covering some good ground, even if they weren't appraised of the rules and tried to chalk the courtyard. Twice. The Lorcan O'Neill campaign is also solidly covering the bases and to be honest, at the moment this one's too hard to call. We'd put O'Neill slightly ahead. All to play for.

Communications:

Clever move by the McDuffie campaign in spreading the rumour that an Eoghan O'Brien win would see the death of An Focal. While it's not true as we read the manifesto, as most people still get their out of date news from the paper, people probably want to hang on to it, such as it has become. It's one of the major things putting McDuffie solidly ahead of O'Brien at the moment. We're not prepared to call it yet but it's looking as though McDuffie may have an easier battle than Ni Raghallaigh did last year, especially as the anointed replacement. Even despite the weakness of his campaign manager as O'Brien's is even less likely to make a difference. He may screw up at Hustings - despite being an auditor of the Debating Society, we're told that McDuffie didn't speak much and wasn't capable of holding a committe to task there. Then again, we've already pointed out his paper bag fighting weakness. Ball's still in play.

Naughty rocket in his pocket?

2010-03-10T15:21:00.000Z

It appears that things may be blowing up in the face of the Rockett after a day or two's campaigning. Facing into a battle with the current president defending his title, surrounded by all the kayakers in the universe can't be easy but the word on the ground is that people are getting seriously peeved with the in your face tactics of the Rockett campaign and the blocking of progress through the Red Raisins for people.

Add to that the little rumours spreading about a pre-election deal struck with the Lodge night club and Paddy Rockett might have the Electoral and Referenda board to contend with as well as a growing band of annoyed punters who'll vote for someone else through plain annoyance. It's not as though we're especially impressed with the power of the ERB but they have the power to pull a candidate's name from the ballot and if our dicky birds are on the ball and are correct that there's encouraging help and free tickets for Rockett supporters being handed out by the local shifting zone during this week, then there could well be a breach of the rule about not getting support from outside interests. And far beyond a few people in the Tuesday market wearing Dempsey t-shirts last year. Whatever about the obvious ticket going on between Rockett and good pal Vivion Grisewood for CSO, this could well be the step over the line that turns people off the campaign for good.

Today could well be the day that we discover if the ERB have any teeth or if they're going to sit, play dumb and wait for an official complaint. GIven the reticient nature of the members of the current board, we're not that hopeful that they'll do more than nothing or whine a little. Time will tell.

Circus 2010 is coming!

2010-03-08T14:18:00.000Z

It's been a year. Who would have thought it, with all the campaigns we've seen from the Student Union over the past few months! Marches, posters, news appearances, all in aid of improving the lot of the students at UL. What a lot we have to be thankful for! Oh, wait.

More of that anon. It's erection time! For some. For the rest of us, it's election time!

Presidential wannabes:

The worst kept secret for the past twelve months is that Paddy Rockett was planning on running for president. He announced before anyone else. Several times. At parties after a few beers or twelve, in the Stables after a few beers or twelve, on the Internet probably after a few drinkies for all we know. In any case, he was running for president. With very important things to say. And with particular criticism of the SU and how it engaged with the community. Despite his past role as Community Relations Officer, a job we'll hear more about later. Paddy likes cute bunnies and is studying science education. We made the first thing up.

Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's also going for another outing. It's been a quiet year for the SU, not much going on, very business-like and lots of co-operation between the university and the Student Union. What about we're not sure. But the SU did say supportive things about the building of Don Barry's 3 million euro house. We hope there was a kickback to the SU of some sort for that. Other events for the SU this year have mostly included... nothing. Lots of co-operation in a business-like environment though. Ruan is your current president.

Louise Clohessy. She's apparently a law student. That's all we know. She's blonde we think. That's not relevant but we don't even know her shoe size. She's probably going to highlight the "outsider breaking the clique" thing. Because that's a new tactic. As we said, Louise is a law student.

The snowboarder, Nick Ryan. The most affable bloke in the universe. Possibly more affable than Ruan. We're not sure who's more happy friendly smiley but a fight to the death should decide. With swizzle sticks. Nick studies business. And snow.

The last entrant into the presidential race was Sharon Brosnan who apparently decided late after her squeeze put out some feelers to people and got some positive responses. She likes to jump out of planes for fun. Sharon studies digital media. And gravity.

Welfare wannabes:

Welfare (aka condom person) comes with a free promotion to Deputy President. Everyone else is also a Vice-President. Except for the President, who is President President. The SU is set up for an organisation with thousands of staff. Except it has about six.

Your welfare offerings this year are both Fianna Failers. That may be good or bad depending on who you vote for but it is what it is.

Derek Daly is the outgoing Welfare officer and has decided he wants to give away condoms to people who don't know which way is up for yet another year. He's regarded as extremely competent, if a little uninspiring. Then again, it's Welfare. Not really a job for lining up all your successes and declaring how you helped them. People might not like that. He's definitely been approachable. And efficient.

Daniel Reid was community relations officer for a while last term. Deemed resigned for missing two exec meetings in a row without giving notice. Of course, given that he was only CRO for two exec meetings and missed both, that'd be all of the exec meetings missed without notice. We wonder if he'll put it down as experience on his CV. Reid argued about it with the SU, saying he didn't know about the meetings or something. We're wondering if he knew what the job was about at all, given that his election posters had him standing in front of an African hut. We fear there may be more of that.

Education wannabes:

Aoife Finnerty got nominated. No-one else did. Election over.

Campaigns & Services wannabes:

Campaigns and Services is the most useless job in the history of Student Unions ever, anywhere, bar none. For as long as we can remember, the campaigns and services officers have forgotten to run any campaigns. The current officer, Fergal Dempsey, has supposedly been too busy with the services to run any. The previous officer, Damian Cahill, had a bit of a protest or two about fees and forgot to run anything else after Christmas. Previous to that we had Paddy McHugh, who said at the start of the year that the services run themselves and then forgot to run any campaigns at all. Too busy "strategising". Before that we don't know. It's an annual twenty thousand euro sinkhole that the Student Union could plug up by just abolishing the job. Everyone's been simply useless. They might not have bothered. We'd have an interest in the performance of this job but everyone's been so bad in the past that we'd fall asleep.

Vivion Grisewood is involved with the UL rugby team. Not the UL Bohemians, the student team. He's also the current Community Relations Officer, elected unopposed after Daniel Reid got kicked. That's eh about it.

Lorcan O'Neill is the current Faculties Officer. Not that we're sure what that is really but we're willing to bet that he goes to a lot of faculty meetings.

Communications wannabes:

We've been quite interested in elections for this position for the past few years as the communications officer is responsible for An Focal and the website as well as every other aspect of Union propaganda. And the most recent two officers (Aoife Breen and Aoife Ni Raghallaigh) have very much toed the SU line, not allowing much or any criticism to make it into the Union paper. Last year, Aoife Ni Raghallaigh even stood up at hustings and announced that she wouldn't allow criticism of the SU to be printed, which cemented the reputation of the paper as little more than a propaganda exercise and a poor one at that.

Finn McDuffie is the current An Focal features editor. He's probably right behind Nick Ryan in the niceness stakes. All fluffy and happy. We reckon he doesn't have the hard nature that being a good newspaper editor requires. Of course, An Focal isn't a good newspaper, especially lately, so maybe that's not so important. Though we'd like it to be a good newspaper again as it's been semi-muck for a year and a half so maybe it is important. He will tell you how much he's written for the paper and probably base his entire campaign around it. We got that from the last two Aoife editors and look how well that worked out. Yes, we're being sarcastic. It's the Internet so we can.

Second up for Communications is Eoghan O'Brien, with a background in radio. UL doesn't have a radio station. But he's less fluffy than Finn so that's a plus. He might actually be able to tell people to go screw themselves. We're not too sure if he's ever written for the paper. He ran Rag Radio two years ago when the Student Union tried out something new for a change. But we're not sure if he's ever written for the paper. Yes, we said it twice. It's the Internet so we can.

The final list is:

President

Sharon Brosnan
Louise Clohessy
Ruán Dillon McLoughlin
Paddy Rockett
Nick Ryan

DP/Welfare

Derek Daly
Daniel Reid

Education

Aoife Finnerty (only nomination, deemed elected)

Campaigns & Services

Vivion Grisewood
Lorcan O'Neill

Communications

Finn McDuffie
Eoghan O'Brien

We've never heard of some of these people. OK, we've never heard of Louise Clohessy. We're pretty sure she has though so that's alright.

Election 09: Final Figures

2009-04-16T13:43:00.000+01:00

We pulled these from the election discussion on boards.ie.

President
Total Poll 2325
Spoilt votes 33
Valid Poll 2291
Quota 1147

Conway, Mark 268
Dillon-McLoughlin, Ruán 1467
Gardiner, Eamon 594

Dillon McLoughlin elected on first count.

VP/Education Officer
Total Poll 2299
Spoilt votes 65
Valid Poll 2234
Quota 1118

Collison-Ryan, David James 538 599 731
Finnerty, Aoife 941 1030 1263
Kerins, Emma 487 556
Thomas Huw 313
Non-transferable 94 191

Finnerty elected on third count.

VP/Campaigns & Services Officer
Total Poll 2266
Spoilt votes 101
Valid poll 2165
Quota 1083

Bourke, Darragh 383
Dempsey, Fergal 1278
Lawler, Michelle 553

Dempsey elected on first count.

VP/Communications Officer
Total poll 2275
Spoilt votes 30
Valid poll 2245
Quota 1123

Dolphin, David 1080
Ni Raghallaigh, Aoife 1196

Ní Raghallaigh elected on first count.

Plebiscite on alternatives to exchequer funded third level tuition fees.
Total poll 2279
Spoilt votes 187
Valid poll 2092

Option 1 666 31.8%
A loan system, repayable at a future date, based on the future salary of each student reaching a certain level

Option 2 187 8.9%
A graduate tax whereby all graduates pay a premium percentage of their wage for the entirety of their working life

Option 3 152 7.3%
A levy on all income earners, regardless of attending a third level course i.e. an increase in general taxation

Option 4 1087 52.0%
I am opposed to alternatives to exchequer-funded third level tuition fees.

The spin has already started on the plebiscite results.

What we're a bit concerned about is that the SU executive in the guise of Pa O'Brien promised that second preferences would be counted, recorded and taken into account. What we have is a shambles of a count, with pro-fees campaigners saying that 48% of students are OK with the idea of fees, anti-fees campaigners saying that 52% of students voted against fees and saying that's a clear mandate. Both the SU and the rabble-rousing FEE - which appears to stand for "AKA Members of Sociality Youth and friends" - are primarily responsible for this waste of time. The SU for insisting that the current situation be included as an option on the ballot paper and FEE for insisting that the current situation be included as an option on the ballot paper. Yes, we said it twice. FEE have also declared that the poll was flawed. Of course it was, you shitehawks, you're the ones that flawed it.

So what do the plebiscite results actually mean? We're not sure. If the second preferences for option 4 ("the country's fucked and all's well") had been counted, as Pa O'Brien promised, we'd have a better idea of what the preference of students was in the event of fees being introduced. Because this was the point of the plebiscite in the first place, this just might have been a good idea. FEE are adamant that this shows that 52% of students are against fees. Because they were the only ones bothering to run a campaign at all, they might have tipped a few more votes into their side of the barrell than the other side, even if as we think, they also lost a few votes for being annoying shitehawks. After all the shouting, we think we've got a situation where more than half of students don't want fees, which is about 40% lower than we might have thought, so perhaps AKA Socialist Youth really annoyed people, and a situation where 32% of the options that were counted want a graduate loan system if fees are introduced. We are pretty sure that results indicate that almost no-one wants a graduate tax or to have everyone pay more tax. That looks like the only certainty.

From the first "but" after the plebiscite was proposed to the final non-counting of the second preferences - another promise broken by this year's SU executive - the entire thing was a fuckup. They should be very proud.

Election 09: Results and scorecard

2009-03-27T12:27:00.000Z

We don't have final figures. We hope to have them some time today. We would already have them if the ULSU website had been updated but given that it hasn't been updated with anything new since last December we'll probably have to get results another way. Or wait two weeks for An Focal to pretend that a two-week old election is still news.

The winners:

President:
Ruan Dillon Mcloughlin

Education:
Aoife Finnerty

Campaigns and services:
Fergal Dempsey

Communications:
Aoife Ni Raghaillaigh

Our quick grade based on our predictions: 4 out of 5

It's a bit more complicated than that though. We got the communications race result wrong but said it was going to be tight. It could have gone either way with the people on the ground and an intervention from experienced campaigners would have tipped it as we said before. Our predictions for President and Campaigns and Services were precise, including the position of the also-rans. In Education the gap between Finnerty and her rivals was a lot bigger than we thought. And we got second-place wrong, Collison-Ryan put up a stronger showing than we thought, although there were large transfers between him and Kerins that never came into play. The rumours floating around that Kerins would have a large cohort out on Thursday proved false and that made the difference. We were the only election blog to predict a Finnerty win. We'd still give ourselves a B+ on the prediction front. When we get full results they will be posted, as well as some commentary on the week.

Final predictions

2009-03-26T14:10:00.000Z

We could get it wrong. But predictions are good as they tend to get campaigners scared.

Communications
Ni Raghaillaigh scored a big own goal with her defence of a propaganda-based An Focal. Everyone knows it and based on the piles of unread copies all this year, everyone dislikes it. But we don't remember anyone ever saying in advance that they'd do it and the leaping defence from Pa O'Brien and Aoife Breen should travel as news around campus and Dolphin could benefit greatly from it. Tight race, but we're predicting a narrow win for Dolphin.

Campaigns and Services
Bourke will come third. Transfers shouldn't matter. Lawlor will try but will fail. First count win for Dempsey.

Education
Another tight race and this one could get bitchy. Transfers will be important. This will go to multiple counts. We think Kerins will be ahead after the first count. Thomas will be fourth. The all-important question is whether Finnerty or Collison Ryan will be second as we think there will be a big transfer of votes between the two. Finnerty is likely to be second as Collison Ryan doesn't have the campaigning staying power or manpower and then the final squeeze will begin. Very close and it will come down to whoever has most people selling them on the day. We're calling it very narrowly for Finnerty.

President
It's a two-horse race between Dillon McLoughlin and Gardiner. Conway is likely to come far behind. Gardiner will do his best but can't be a match for the kayak and Fianna Fail powered Dillon McLoughlin juggernaught. Easy win. Dillon McLoughlin.

The plebiscite
No to fees might do rather well. Despite socialist youth aka FEE campaigning for it. With a large majority expected, some people might vote for something else just to spite them.

Hustings

2009-03-26T11:20:00.000Z

We'd use the word "controversial". Or "WTF". 99% of you weren't there so we'd better explain what hustings are. The candidates line up on a stage. They talk. You listen. You ask questions. You hope they answer them. There's a microphone. You go home with a better idea of who's good and who's just there to get laid.

Then again, there are ULSU hustings.

It was all supposed to kick off at 2pm. We found this out by hanging around and asking people. There might have been more people there if it had been advertised in any meaningful way. This was almost a secret hustings organised by the SU. At 2pm, they were starting to assemble the stage in the stables courtyard. Only the curious and the determined would manage to see what was going on with the candidates and the microphone as there was no advertising for the democratic process at all. It had been mentioned in An Focal but with over a thousand of the previous issue from two weeks ago still sitting inside the SU door given that people aren't reading it any more, we're not confident that all that many people had picked up the new one.

Damian Cahill is a good lad but he's not really down with the responsibility thing. The blame for the non-erection of the stage can be laid on the ents people it seems. The ones who are hired by the SU to run discos and rag weeks. Damian is the Campaigns and Services officer. This includes Services, which includes Ents. Damian opened the meeting by welcoming everyone, or at least those that bothered, and said he wouldn't apologise for the late start as it wasn't his fault. Who's keeeping an eye on Ents then?

After the long unexplained delay, things finally got going. The chair was a former SU president but it appeared that no-one explained the rules to him as there were quite a few people in the crowd wanting to add comments after the questions without actually asking questions. Was Joe Wallace not available? He's been chairing most of them since before any of us remember. And was the new guy booked at the last minute or something?

Following established protocol, and probably the rules, it kicked off with communications.

Communications

Dolphin formally said that he'd cut Pulse. Might actually be a good idea, the content could be folded into An Focal to make the paper stronger and save over ten grand a year. It's the kind of money that could go a long way towards other things that people might care a bit more about.

We were expecting the two candidates to be neck and neck on presentation or even for Ni Raghaillaigh to be ahead. Dolphin is a tech head. With very few exceptions, tech heads don't make good public speakers or know how to use a crowd. But it was Dolphin who answered questions confidently without using notes while Ni Raghaillaigh carefully read a prepared speech without looking at the crowd at all.

The contraversial bit. The current officers managed to make arses of themselves during the communications questions when the subject of An Focal being a propaganda paper cane up for discussion. Ni Raghaillaigh said it was just the way it was while Dolphin said it wasn't the way it should be. If the ping pong discussion between the two wasn't enough, president Pa O'Brien stepped up, followed by current editor Aoife Breen, and said that was the way it was and it would be so forever more. It must have touched off a nerve in them as it was totally out of order.

What we're curious about is whether this will be enough to get last year's An Focal editor off the fence and plunge down into the campaigning mire. Seamus Ryan reputedly spent an entire year battling with his fellow officers to tone down the propaganda factor in An Focal and turn it into an actual newspaper. Catering for the student voice and the dissenting voice was the thing he was most vocal about and it was probably the reason he got elected. We reckon its the return to the old non-veiled propaganda that has resulted in his not contributing to the paper at all since Aoife of the Breens took over. The trouble is that we''ve seen Ryan campaigning to a crowd of people one by one in the past and he's probably the best at it that we've ever seen, switching effortlessly between topics to hammer home a position and get multiple votes. As this was important enough to him two years ago to base his campaign around it, it might be enough to get him out in the trenches campaigning for Dolphin. The turnover of a few hundred votes that would result purely from that would be enough to tip the election Dolphin's way. It's a pity he didn't run himself, he's been around long enough to know something about everything and always been blunt enough to make any election interesting. And it would have been nice to see to see a bit of pure substance entered into some of the races.

Outcome: strong showing from Dolphin. Less strong showing from Ni Raghaillaigh. It may not matter tomorrow. We see them as being neck and neck and either of them could take home the prize. There can be only one.

Campaigns and Services

The CSO hust brought foward the three campaigners for the position and we finally got to see what some of them looked like.

Darragh Bourke promised a bigger better rag week but didn't really say how. He also promised an off-licence for the college but didn't really say how.

Fergal Dempsey promised better acts on campus but didn't say how. And the mighty craic with bring your own beer parties. He could talk to Darragh Bourke to help out with that, with the off-licence Bourke promised that Dempsey didn't.

Michelle Lawlor tried very hard not to mention the Blizzards. She wants less cars, more bus lanes and lots of free nights out for students. And that kind of thing. But she didn't really say how. She also wants vending machines in the library, which is sure to send the staff there into the heart attack zone unless it just sells bottled water.

Not all that interestingly, but slightly, Bourke was the only one to mention the big blowup cinema screen. We'd forgotten it existed. It cost about ten grand and has only been used the once as far as we can tell. It hasn't been used at all this year and we're guessing it's under somebody's bed.

The wannabe CSOs were asked to list what bands they'd secure for UL. Not much outcome there but we did find out that Lawlor can name two bands that aren't the Blizzards.

This one we're calling for Dempsey. There's no more substance there than there is for the other two but he will have enough people around to make a big noise. Bourke will finish a fading third. Lawlor could steal it if she has enough people out and about and makes a strong dive at the female vote, picking up a few fellas along the way but we think this race is over. As we've thought from the start. Dempsey will have to repair the view that even the students who care about the SU have about this job, there hasn't been much value fmor it in the past two years.

Education

Education was a tighter run, at least between Finnerty and Kerins. They both brought enough supporters with them to make a bit of noise, more than their competitors.

David James James Collison Ryan talked a lot about his experience. A quick run into the underrepresentation of international students was a stab at the floating vote of the unindoctrinated. Shame none of them knew it was on.

Not so many questions for the education candidates. It's a boring job and everyone knows it.

They were asked about how they'd reform class reps. It appears that even class reps know that it's boring so they don't go. Finnerty wants to hammer home that it's not just about the hoodies. Kerins wants training to be provided in the evenings, which we remember being done last year anyway. Thomas wants better communication. Collison Ryan wants to change the perception of class reps. Nothing of any substance there then.

The most interesting question of the entire affair came from habitual troublemaker and last year's editor Seamus Ryan. Even officially staying out of the election completely by the looks of things, he's been as much a feature in the background as any of the runners, which is why he's getting a second mention here, especially given that we know he was asked to be campaign manager for more than one of the candidates and has probably had a cuppa with more than half of them in the past week. Being a bit older than the kids currently running the show, he's got a habit of asking questions that throw people and this one certainly did. The fees plebiscite. Not all that interested in what the candidates were thinking was their first option, as students are hardly going to vote for fees when they can vote for no fees, the question was what their second option was. After the shock of being asked a pointed question faded, the candidates all managed to give a different answer to the question. Kerins favours graduate loans. Thomas wants the current situation with means testing. Collison Ryan finished with no nay never to fees but likes graduate taxes as a fallback. Finnerty wants increased general taxation. The most resolute answer came from Finnerty but as she answered last she had an extra minute or two to think of one.

This is a tough one to call. We reckon it's a competition between the two women as Collison Ryan doesn't appear to have the manpower to win the election. Neither does Thomas. It's for Kerins or Finnerty to win and while Kerins may have a slight edge, either candidate could take it depending on transfers and how many people they have at their call tomorrow.

President

The presidential debate was interesting, if only because we all finally knew that Mark Conway is not a 60-year old guy. He looks about 20 and likes to wear hats. He did mention that he knows that some people think he's taking the piss, which makes him very in touch with what students are thinking right now. He also wants an off-licence in UL and wants to bring back the buzz. We wouldn't call him a stoner but he dresses and acts like one. Probably a nice guy though, it's good to see an outsider running. He insisted on telling us he was an outsider though, flinging around the word clique more than Dempsey did in his manifesto. After the Communications debate silliness with the current guys, he's probably got a point. We liked him. Not that we'd vote for him or anything.

Ruan Dillon Mcloughlin wants to see a fulltime person hired to deal with lecturer complaints. We know that's not going to happen any time soon if ever but it's something new, even if it just follows the "hire new person to do something you see as a problem" line. He didn't deal with his manifesto content at all, saying he wanted to talk about new things. We're hoping he was involved in the writing of his manifesto but even if he wasn't, he can get around to reading it over the weekend. He came across a lot better than the other two candidates. That's typical of the presidential race, people vote for the person they like the best. Perhaps he wrote his own manifesto, who knows.

Eamon Gardiner took a strong law and order and society falling apart line on pretty much everything. While he wants more buses and an integrated transport policy, we were much more interested in his view that there will be beatings if he doesn't get elected. He fielded a question that had been blatantly planted to knock him back on what candidates have put aside for this week rather well. It looks silly when campaign managers who are obviously running at some point in the future make total tits of themselves so perhaps the joke was on one Paddy Rockett, current community officer, future election candidate and Dempsey campaign manager, who could have been high at the time. It was rather obvious. And cliquey. Mark Conway could have made hay on it if there was anyone there to listen.

The Dillon McLoughlin party machine is likely to steam home on this one. Whether or not he's a secret member of Fianna Fail, he'll have some extra help from the party when the polls open as he's backed by one of their mein UL men (Daly). He may not even need the help with his kayak cohort out in the trenches. Conway will trail at the bottom of the poll, Gardiner will do respectably but we can't see him coming close to stealing it.

The WTF bit. For some reason there was a question towards the end from Damian Cahill. Aware that the entire thing had started over half an hour late and probably aware thst students have better thing to be doing with their time like studying, he asked the candidates why they thought there was such a small number of students at the hustings. Dillon McLoughlin said it was because students weren't properly told it was on. Gardiner said the same thing. Conway mentioned the clique. Full marks to all three. The two things we came away with were a sense of wonder about that the chair of the Electoral and Referenda board was doing asking questions of candidates in the first place and why the Campaigns and Services officer was still looking for pointers on how to get students to an event nine months into his term of office. Easy answer. Tell people that it's on. Almost nobody knew.

What we liked about the whole debacle was that there were lots of questions asked. Most of them were plants. But unusually, not all of them were plants. And it was far too cold to have such an event outside, which should have caused a move in venue as the stage hadn't been set up by 2pm. The crowd would have moved, most of them were campaigners. But they stayed, even if it was just to make noise and pretend that their chosen candidate had more friends than could be counted.

Based on what we see in the final day of campaigning, our thoughts may change a bit but we are readiy to make our final predictions

What we've seen

2009-03-26T04:22:00.000Z

Interesting start to the campaigns by some candidates, non-start to the campaign by other candidates. Do these guys not know that if they don't bother doing anything at all they won't get their forty euro deposit back?

Mark Conway could be our next president. Or the next guy to lock up his daughter for 24 years in his basement. We could go either way on this one. We're not sure what possessed him to use a picture of Joe Fritzl on his leaflets but the word is that he thinks that any publicity is good. If he's doing a joke stunt he's going to have to make it funnier or tell people. We've come across a few people who now think that Mark Conway is about 60 years of age with a dodgy look in his beady eye. We haven't met the chap though so perhaps he does. Someone should tell him that campaigning is good if you want votes. If nobody tells him it may be like the Paddy McHugh campaign for president last year, where he didn't start campaigning until it was too late for anyone to care.

Eamon Gardiner's facebook group has let us know that he's been through EVERY stage in UL life now from undergraduate to postgraduate. Aren't those the first two and joined together. When he reads, does he let people know that he's read EVERY page now from page 1 to page 2 and all the pages in between? He's also pretty sure that if pensioners can stop the government than 100,000 students can too. Good luck getting 100,000 students out for anything. Even free porn wouldn't get 100,000 students out. The pensioners like their days out to protest, it gives them a chance to catch up with their non-dead friends when they've nothing else to do, which is all the time. He also spells his surname "GARDINDER" on his flyer, which is presumably his secret identity to fool the feds. He also guarantees to bring high profile bands to UL. We think this means that we will all get to have breakfast with the Blizzards if we hang around long enough.

Ruan Dilloin Mcloughlin (yes, it's Dillon Mcloughlin, we got it assways before) wants to make the Union more relevant to all students. No, we've never heard that one before. He's picked up a fianna failer as his campaign manager. It's the kind of thing we'd half-expect students to notice but the political parties seem to arrive into student union elections by stealth until the day you notice that there's nobody running but political party candidates. Or if there aren't any candidates available they'll latch on anyway, making it look good to their overmasters who may eventually present them with the key to the junior executive washroom. The guy in question, Derek Daly, ran for a senior position on the kiddie FF council last year but didn't manage it so a win here might help him get another brownie point until the day he gets the badge. Ruan Dillon Mcloughlin wants to run a day link bus service to the housing estates around Castletroy. We guess this is because students are tired of smelling the residents. Or just don't like walking. In any case he'll be lucky to get anyone to fund it. We're putting this in the same box as the question current president Pa O'Brien asked last year about why we can't get the real Christy Moore for rag week instead of the Christy "this is just a tribute" band. It plays well with the plebs but that's all its for. Unless he charges money to use it. Then it'll be a "bus".

The education candidates got rolling as well.

Emma Kerins seems to have portrayed herself as either a cat lady or a witch, depending on who you ask. We know that cat ladies don't exist and that witches live on their own with cats. Most of them aren't students so perhaps this is a joke that only her campaign team get. It's probably hilarious.

Aoife Finnerty is going after the superhero vote. Such a pity that UL doesn't have many phone boxes but we suppose that when you're elected to the student union, at least you have your own office to change into the costume.

David James Collison Ryan is also racing after the votes from people who like cats, with his logo stolen or a tribute to MGM for some reason. It might be because his initials are DJCR as that instantly conjures up images of MGM. At least it might do to him. We hear on our own grapevine that his real name is David James James Collison Ryan. Yes, we typed it twice. Supposedly he picked the same name for his confirmation as his parents had picked for his baptism. Did no-one tell him that he could pick any other name that the local bishop would approve? We really hope that the sudden introduction of the "James (James) Collison" isn't just some attempt to get himself on top of the ballot paper. Or some kind of appeal to all the UL fans of Portsmouth FC.

Huw Thomas has something of a smothering fetish judging by his poster, which shows him getting down and dirty with Batt O'Keeffe. He's also got a long long list of things to do in his manifesto though.

On to the CSO candidates.

We haven't seen anything from Darragh Bourke. He may not be real.

Michelle Lawlor has a few people around, though again without an awful lot of presence. We didn't manage to pick up one of her leaflets.

Fergal Dempsey has to be seen as the one to beat here, if only because of his support from people who know him through his involvement in clubs. His leaflet is bright and colourful and has more substance than we'd have expected. Also more "f**ks" than we'd have expected. He's probably managed to establish himself in people's minds as the front runner, though it's still possible for Lawlor to catch and pass him.

Next, the communications race.

Slow start but then Dolphin wasn't sure he was actually in the race until Monday morning when Ni Raghaillaigh's objection was withdrawn. And Ni Raghaillaigh didn't know that she definitely had opposition until she realised the objection would be overruled and she withdrew it. Some interesting things from each and they're both going cheap. Dolphin takes issue with the continuation of Pulse, which costs a fortune to produce for something that almost nobody reads. Ni Raghaillaigh promises to do something about the ulsu website, which hasn't been updated since December and almost nobody reads. Then again, Dolphin is promising the same thing. Ni Raghaillaigh is promising an online version of An Focal, which is something that just appears to have not been bothered with this year as the website has copes from the past few years. We don't read the Irish columns all that much but again, that's something that was just dropped this year. Overall, nothing dramatically exciting from either candidate sofar so it will probably come down to how they fare on the ground.

As usual, while people are coming up with some good ideas, there's also the usual populist rhetoric to get in the regulars who don't know what's going on. The north campus photocopier. A campus off-licence. Pay for teaching practice. The security issue. Some of these things are important but at this point they've been issues for so long that we'd like to see more plans about them and less mentioning of them just to get a few extra votes from people who don't know that they've been mentioned by twenty people already in past years.

Declaration Time

2009-03-26T04:15:00.000Z

We think it would be good to explain at this time that we have no affiliation with any of the candidates. None. And we don't really want an affiliation with any of the candidates either. Bathing once a day is enough. They draw us in with promises of sweets. And in the case of Fergal Dempsey, sex with his campaign manager. We took the sweets.

Everybody seems to have an opinion, except the thousands of students who don't give a crap. But we're not so cheaply bought. And we're not going to be, no sympathy, no caring, no bribery. Some of the sweets were just bad anyway.

It starts

2009-03-26T03:26:00.000Z

Friday’s nomination close was interesting. In case you don’t know what we’re talking about, University of Limerick student union elections are on this week. You are forgiven if you didn’t notice, campaigners can be such wallflowers at times.

The deal has been for a few years that nominations close, candidates are declared and everyone goes off and has an election. People who don’t know what or who they’re voting for are dragged to the polls or cheaply bribed for their vote and democracy carries on just as the greeks intended.

But not on Friday. In one of those cockups you only hear about from Zimbabwe or somewhere like that, Damian Cahill declared the nomination period over as chair of the grandly-styled Electoral and Referenda board. Then he went into the office of the returning officer, aka Union Secretary General Tomas Costello, who told him that nominations would be closed in two minutes. Cue announcement reversal from Damian. The last candidate arrives, going by the pseudonym of David Dolphin, or at least he would be if Dolphin wasn’t his real name. Where do we get these names? Returning officer accepted his form and then declared the nomination period closed. Listing all candidates, he included two for Communications: Aoife Ni Raghaillaigh and Dolphin, cutting it close to the wire but still deemed on time.

Ni Raghaillaigh objected. Saying it was after 5pm, she maintained his form shouldn’t be accepted and that she should be installed as New Overlord of All Things Communication. Costello as returning officer said he had accepted the form and that his word was final. Then the chair of the Electoral and Referenda board decided it wasn’t, that he was really the master of the universe and that the complaint was valid. Result: Dolphin out, Ni Raghaillaigh new Overlord. The fannying about between board chair and returning officer would make an Albanian government proud.

Word is that the objection didn’t originate with Ni Raghaillaigh. She made the objection as the one who had to but the quiet word is that the push to make the objection came from Aoife Breen, our current resident communicator and Damian Cahill, our current resident campaigner. That’s something we find more than a bit ironic with his requirement to stay neutral as a current Sabbat, requirement to stay neutral as chair of the Electoral and Referenda board and with all the campaigns that have been loudly run in term 2. Oh. Campaigns that might have been run in term 2.

But make the objection she did. And defended it in public. Like this on Boards.ie:

I can understand why you would think it was petty but the reason I objected was because I believe that if the rules are bent at the start of the election then they will be bent throughout the election and this is not fair on any candidate. As other posters have said, the nominations opened last Friday so there was plenty of time to get the form in, and everyone knew when nominations closed. I feel terrible for the trouble this has caused, but I still stand by my objection.

While all this is going on, nosey people stick their heads up out of the mire and let it slip that the deadline is 6pm, not 5. Seems the constitution has something to say about it after all. While we think it was the same nosey people, some of them are quite precise about how the deadline is 6pm. Nosey parkers. Did no-one involved in running the election bother to read the rules? Maybe they were too busy writing new ones.

It all blew over on Monday before the Electoral and Referenda board bothered to meet up the objection was withdrawn. Probably because by the looks of things the Electoral and Referenda board would have overruled the objection. Better to withdraw it than have it blow up in the face.

In the background, we learned of people running for other things that were not communications officer. Clubs king Ruan McLoughlin Dillon for president against twice a bridesmaid once a bride for Education Eamon Gardiner. And someone called Mark Conway as the dark horse. Three candidates for Campaigns and Services including two we had never heard of. Four for education. The recession must be kicking in for people as education is the most boring job in the entire student union.

And no-one wanted to take care of the weaker bunnies and run for welfare. We’re not too sure why, after all the pay is the same.

The final list is:

President

Mark Conway
Ruán Dillon McLoughlin
Eamonn Gardiner

DP/Welfare

No nominations. Nominations will open again on Monday at 9am. Forms can be picked up from the reception.

Education

David James Collison Ryan
Aoife Finnerty
Emma Kerins
Huw Thomas

Campaigns & Services

Darragh Bourke
Fergal Dempsey
Michelle Lawlor

Communications

David Dolphin
Aoife Ni Raghallaigh

If you don't know who some of these people are, that's alright. We don't either. We're sure they'll tell us how great they are though.