Presidential candidate Carty vows to donate €5,000 of his salary to TAP if elected

Speaking to Trinity News today, Carty showed his support for TAP. “It’s a great initiative”, he stated and although it “doesn’t affect [him] personally”, he expressed that he wished to “lead by example”

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Stephen Carty, one of the three candidates running to be Trinity College Dublin’s Student Union President has made a vow to donate €5,000 of his presidential salary to the Trinity Access Programme (TAP) if elected to the post. The presidential salary sums to around €16,000 for the term which spans the course of a year (July-July).

Carty released the new manifesto point today at 1pm on his campaign Facebook page.

Speaking to Trinity News today, Carty showed his support for TAP. “It’s a great initiative”, he stated and although it “doesn’t affect [him] personally”, he expressed that he wished to “lead by example”. When asked why he was willing to give up such a large amount of his salary, he responded, “This is what I’m about. [These are] my philosophies and my ideas.”

I inquired as to why he only released this manifesto point four days into the race. Last year, polls taken on the third year of the campaigning period were found to be within a few percent of the election result. Carty confirmed that he had in fact been “talking long before” about this idea. He explained that he has been happy with his “good presence on social media” until now and was biding his time to release this point so that “it would be most effective”. He went onto confirm that he hasn’t “released the campaign video yet” but will soon.

Voting for the Student Union’s election opens on Monday, 15th of February. The campaign season ends on Thursday, 18th of February at 4pm.

Una Harty

Úna is a third year Nanoscience student and Trinity Life editor for Trinity News.