For decades Turkey has been pursuing membership to the coalition of nations known as the European Union. As a young European with a vested interest in Europe’s future, the futility, thus far, of this pursuit troubles me. Turkish accession, with its 73 million people and acting as a bridge between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, would dramatically alter the nature of the European Union and herald its becoming a major player on the world stage.

Dear Staff and Students –

You are all aware from the media reports that the country is facing challenges which require drastic action on every front and we as a university will have our part to play.

Given the crucial role which high-quality university education will play in bringing the country out of recession, I am hopeful that the case I and the other University Presidents have been making for the past number of years at Government level will be reflected in the best-case budget for the sector. In my view it would be fatal to cut-back to a point where we cannot even deliver our core mission. Other countries have invested in education and research in their worst moments.

I presented a paper to the Board of the College at its meeting on 10 November in which several scenarios for the College’s finances for the next five years were presented. A worst-case and best-case scenario were outlined which ranged from a 20 percent to 10 percent cut in the Government allocation (core grant plus free fees allocation) resulting in a cut in money terms ranging from €20m (worst case) to €10m (best case) by 2013 over the 2010 level. If allowance is made for an expected downturn in research income and its contribution to overhead costs, and the additional costs that must be factored in for new space are taken into account, the funding available to the College will decrease by a further €10m. Either scenario represents an enormous problem and one that cannot be managed without drastic and far-reaching action.

There is one very positive point in our favour. We are in the fortunate position that, due to prudent management under our new central structures, the College has no budgetary deficit thereby positioning it in a relatively strong position to address the current funding crisis.

In considering the financial projections as presented, the Board agreed that we must take every step within our control to secure the College’s future financial viability. We must consider all actions that can be embedded into the system with a long-term impact without undermining the core mission. Once-off funding may be used in the initial period to off-set the expected decrease in government funding of our activities. The College’s actions will focus on: (a) increasing revenue from non-Exchequer sources: a number of sources are being considered, including increased recruitment of fee-paying students, and enhanced philanthropy and commercialisation activities; (b) cutting costs by ceasing activities and/or by introducing greater efficiencies in the use of staff resources, supported in large measure by the completion of the College’s strategy programme.

The Board agreed that my management team, including the Executive Officer Group and its Planning Group, will look at all options to secure the College’s financial future. This work has now started and a process of consultation with Heads of School, Heads of administrative and support areas, and student representatives is underway to seek solutions and mechanisms to address the financial crisis. I would also like to engage the whole community. To this end I will hold a number of public fora at the beginning of December to further discuss the situation and to solicit your suggestions.

The impact of the financial situation on the quality of teaching and the overall student experience is a cause of grave concern and I am extremely appreciative of the efforts being made by staff in all areas of the College to cope with the reduced staff numbers already taking place over the last two years. My colleagues in the IUA and I have been working actively with the HEA and the Department of Education and Skills to find solutions and to secure the best possible arrangements for the College within the context of the Employment Control Framework.

It is inevitable that personal cuts in pay, the current lack of promotional opportunities, the prospect of increased student charges as well as the adverse nature of much public commentary will have an impact on the morale of our College community, but there is also a resilience and a determination to succeed that is helping us to achieve our goals and to meet our obligations, notwithstanding the unprecedented extent of the current national crisis. By creative planning and looking at all options – short and long term – I am optimistic that we can seize the opportunities offered by the current crisis and emerge stronger and very well placed to contribute to the country’s inevitable recovery.

I hope that the Government in whatever form will not take such steps as to fatally damage the system.

John Hegarty
Provost

By Peter Henry

Any sensible person ought to be irritated by the perpetuation of fabricated stories of university traditions. I have met a graduate who claims to know the student who invented the “you can shoot Catholics from that window” story. And walking under the Campanile will cause you to fail your examinations? They have that one in Cork.

Perhaps people aren’t to be blamed for peddling these lies. After all, since the 1960s this university has divested itself of most of the things that made it unique. Falsities rush in to fill the vacuum left by the eradication of our true traditions.

Commencements is one of the survivals. The human condition seems to demand solemnity, ritual and formality for great occasions, and so we are lucky that no know-all administrator or left-leaning academic attempted to interfere with the ceremony in the wake of the Sixties. We could have been saddled with a vernacular smile-fest in the Arts Building. With everyone wearing his best hoody.

This etching must be one of the oldest depictions of Commencements – perhaps the oldest. Printed in the Daily Graphic newspaper on May 14, 1890, it shows how few people took their degrees at each session in the 19th century. Just a few candidates are lined up, with some young females eyeing up the group. In the picture, several men can be identified. The provost, George Salmon, is seated to the left. Then there’s the Rev Dr Haughton, professor of Geology, who is famous for perfecting the hanging of criminals, ensuring their necks broke at the time of the drop. The man in the large chair wearing glasses is the Rt Hon John Thomas Ball, then Vice-Chancellor of the university. A Trinity graduate himself, Ball was Attorney General for Ireland and an MP for Dublin University. Mr Cathcart, a Fellow, is in the chair to his left.

The accompanying text lets us know that professors Dowden, Mahaffy and Tyrell were also there, and explains that, in 1890, the event had become relatively tame: “These so- called ‘commencements’ used to be the occasion for a great deal of good-humoured rioting and horse-play on the part of the students. The Trinity boys are now far quieter than they used to be.”

An account of the proceedings at Commencements earlier in the 19th century is preserved in a letter of William Smyth Guinness. He wrote about his 1816 BA Commencements to his brother. (He later took the MA, in 1826.) Mr Guinness’s letter was reprinted in the late provost William Watts’s 2008 A Memoir.

The young Guinness recounts how, at the time, graduands knelt to receive their degrees: “We the candidate bachelors knelt at the table and repeated, after one of the Senior Fellows, who read them out of the Statutes, certain oaths in the Latin language… Then we individually knelt upon a cushion at the Vice Chancellor’s feet, and having laid our hands upon another velvet cushion upon the table before him, he covered them with his and pronounced in Latin the form of conferring the degree.”

The hand-touching is also no more, but a similar ritual is preserved in Cambridge, where five graduates will hold the five fingers of the chancellor when receiving their degrees. The Latin survives, and, mercifully, invocations of God. The Chancellor opens the ceremony, even today, by saying “Comitia fiant in nomine Dei” – Let Commencements begin in the name of God. The conclusion is appropriately Trinitarian: “Comitia solvantur in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti” – Let Commencements be adjourned in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

THIS COLUMN has already pointed out that both MBs and BAs – that is, all medicine graduates and most other bachelors – are supplied with hoods of incorrect shapes when receiving their degrees. This has not yet been remedied. I also noticed at Summer Commencements this year that no master received a Dublin masters’ gown – everyone was supplied with an Oxford MA gown. The difference is slight, the shape of the end of the sleeve being distinctive – but when handing over money, one does expect the correct gown. One MA was even given a Queen’s Belfast bachelors’ gown – nothing at all like a Dublin masters’ gown. The staff members’ enthusiasm for pinning the hood to the gown is contemptible. A hood will sit perfectly well without safety pins.

ON THE subject of degrees, a nice Limerick stands out among the unfunny rubbish in the Trinity Rag Mag of 1980. Unlikely to have originated here, it is nevertheless witty: “A maiden at college named Breeze/Weighed down by BAs and LittDs/Collapsed from the strain/Alas it was plain/She was killing herself by degrees.”
A timeless warning to perpetual students, I suppose.

pehenry@tcd.ie

An editorial entitled “Endorsement for Election Candidate” in the third issue of Trinity News informed the reader that the paper does not intend to endorse a candidate for the election of a new Provost in April on the grounds that “ such a practice is now anachronistic, and in conflict with our aim of impartiality.”

I agree with the decision not to endorse a candidate, but not the reasoning behind it. The worthy goal of impartiality should not prevent the paper from making a judgement in the editorial form. And, in practice, it does not: the Editor, or a proxy appointed by her, routinely appraises current events and arrives at a conclusion. Indeed, the other editorial in that issue criticised the ability of the Students’ Union to communicate their message, and concluded, “at this current time, we cannot afford to be represented by an organisation that allows us to be ignored.”

Once sound reasoning is given, the ethical standing of this paper’s future reportage on that issue is not in any way imperiled. I have no doubt that the paper will continue to cover the Students’ Union without bias. Likewise, an endorsement of a candidate for Provost would not indicate that they would be treated any more favorably in our pages than a competitor, should they win the election.

In my opinion, the only reason not to endorse is that a recommendation from Trinity News would have little impact on the election results. The Provost is not elected by our primary audience, the student body, but by full-time academic staff that meet certain criteria and those who attend Board and Council meetings. And yet, both current and future students will be greatly affected by the outcome. The Provost’s term of office is ten years, and in that time they will exert great influence over major decisions, from how College is funded to where that budget is spent.

I believe that as students do not have a voice in this election, this paper has a special role in letting them know how each candidate would make key decisions. Profiles, even excellent ones like that of Professor Jane Ohlmeyer in the last issue, are of limited value because this is a case where personality matters less than policy.

I propose a short survey, to be sent to each candidate as they declare, which would enable readers to learn what we can expect from any new Provost. As to its content, I suspect there are a few questions we all want answers to (in one hundred words or less per response):

1. Do you see free education, supported by the registration fee, as a sustainable method of funding undergraduate study at Trinity? If not, what do you propose?
2. Do you agree that the current library opening hours are unsatisfactory?
3. Do you foresee partnerships with other universities inside or outside Ireland as an important part of the future of this university? What experience do you have that would enable you to bring about such an alliance?
4. Name one decision made by the current Provost that you would have made differently.

Perhaps readers might suggest a few additional questions they would like to see added to the questionnaire via email.

By publishing this simple piece of research, Trinity News would be providing a valuable service to the students of this institution. Possibly, the responses could also be given a page on the website, where readers could compare the various submissions. Far more than an endorsement, this would fulfill the paper’s stated purpose of informing the student body about matters which concern it.

By Cillian Murphy public@trinitynews.ie

By Peter Henry

DIVINE worship was once an integral part of college life. An early 18th-century English translation of the college’s statutes allows us to see how this was so, with its detail on the routine of prayers here.

Robert Bolton’s 1709 translation gives the college’s schedule of supplication: “Prayers shall be publickly offered up to God in the Chapel thrice every ordinary day, at the six of the clock in the morning, afterwards at ten in the forenoon, and lastly at four in the afternoon.”

There was to be a sermon on Sunday mornings, with an exception: “Except, that on the Sundays in Lent, we will and ordain, that the Provost, Fellows and Scholars, and all the students dwelling in the college, shall solemnly go to the cathedral church of St Patrick, and there have a sermon, but in the afternoon, according to the ancient practice of the church.”

The correct get-up was prescribed, with a penalty of five shillings for transgressors. All attending wore “clean surplices, and (as many as are graduates) with hoods proper for their degree”.

These ancient college statutes record Trinity College’s unique and peculiar prayer, which was recited in English: “O Lord Jesu Christ, who art the eternal Wisdom of the Father, we beseech thee to assist us with thy heavenly Grace, that we may be blessed in our studies this day, and above all things, may attain the knowledge of three, whom to know is life eternal; and that, according to the example of thy most holy childhood, we may grow in wisdom and years and favour with God and Man. Amen.”

This prayer, which alludes to Luke 2:52, was later incorporated into the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Ireland, to be used “in colleges and schools”. The old statutes did not tolerate dissent – particularly of the Catholic kind. “The Provost and Senior Fellows”, read the document, “shall take care that no Popish or heretical opinion be maintained or abetted within the limits of the college.”

It continued: “Moreover, no one shall be elected Fellow, who shall not, by a solemn and public oath, renounce the Popish religion, as far as it differs from the catholic and orthodox faith, and the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome.”
These sentences reflect the sentiments of Archbishop Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-17th century, according to Dixon in his 1902 history of the college. Despite the clauses, Dixon writes, no students were required to make religious declarations on matriculation, and even those living in rooms were not forced to attend services if known to be dissenters of some kind.

Nonetheless, while the Catholic student could get through a few years in college, the oath against Transubstantiation at Commencements would have prevented him taking a degree, until it was removed in 1795.

Catholics nearly won the day in 1689. When King James II’s soldiers took over the college, the chapel – not the present building, which was finished in 1798 – was turned over to Catholic worship. On October 21 that year “the chapel was sprinkled and new consecrated, and Mass was said in it”. But that situation was short-lived. That year may have been the last in which Mass was said publicly in college using the ancient Roman rite – today the missal of Paul VI is used.

A detailed study of the liturgical life of Trinity in years past would be a worthwhile endeavour. In the meantime, these references and some pages in Lesley Whiteside’s The Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin (1998) give some insight.

THE UNIVERSITY of Dublin Calendar is admirable in its pedantry but irritating in its omissions. Why do the committee members of the Graduate Students’ Union have no postnominals? Are we to take it that this year’s committee is not made up of graduates?

Similarly, again, the members of the Scholars’ Committee do not have “Sch” appended to their names , yet the CSC “chair” (read chairman, unless he is an item of furniture) correctly does. The Students’ Union’s communications officer lacks his – along with others, no doubt.

I must repeat another complaint. The editors of the Calendar have jumped on the minimalist buzz about 30 years too late. The change to Arial is jarring and unnecessary. Next year, switch back to Times – or, much better, to the Century variant used before 1980.

A HERALDIC snippet. The awarding of degrees is the main function of the University of Dublin, as distinct from Trinity College. One would think, therefore, that the coat of arms of the University of Dublin would have been seen on degrees of this university from the time the arms were granted in 1862. However, on October 24, 1963, Trinity News recorded that they were not used until that year:

“One hundred and one years after a coat of arms was granted to the University of Dublin, they were first used on the degree certificates. The first person to receive one of these was JF Kennedy, President of the United States, who had conferred upon him an honorary degree of doctor in laws in St Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle, on June 28, 1963.”

pehenry at tcd.ie

Iss – services whoM exactly?

Madam –
I note that IS Services’ quest to find devilish new ways to inconvenience us continues apace. They have thoughtfully divided their online timetable system into half-hour increments, notionally doubling the accuracy of the system. However, since lectures have been one hour long for as much of the last 400 years as I can remember, everything just appears twice.
Before long this organisation will deserve having a “D” added to the start of their name.

Yours, etc,
Martin McKenna
SS Biochemistry

how to make a ball out of it
Madam –
It seems that the Trinity Ball for 2011 is in some doubt in the light of Trinity’s sad decline in the World Ballroom Dance Rankings (more dramatic, indeed, than in strictly academic matters). The College authorities in the wake of the successes of restructuring and semesterisation are naturally looking for a remedy for this sad state of affairs. I give some idea below of preliminary thinking on this matter.
It will no longer be sufficient to qualify for entrance to the prestigious Trinity Ball (Dublin’s Social Event of the Year) by getting drunk by 8:00pm in evening dress. Students and staff wishing to attend will henceforth need a Diploma in Elementary Dance (under the supervision of the Senior Dean for staff and Junior Dean for students). The following paper will be compulsory:
1. Old Time (Viennese) and Slow (Tennessee) Waltz.
2. Quick Step.
3. Foxtrot.
4. Rock ‘n’ Roll.
This will naturally not be difficult for Trinity students. Skilled performers in these dances can be seen regularly at Jury’s in Ballsbridge on a Saturday night and at the Regency Airport Hotel in Whitehall on a Sunday night.
There will also be an optional paper for more advanced students in:
1. Rumba (for romantics).
2. Cha cha cha and samba (for agile exhibitioners).
3. Tango (for real men and real women).
Dance instruction can be made available in Hilary Term for the inexpert if need arises.
Anyone showing discourtesy to a lady at the Trinity Ball will be summarily ejected by the vigilant security guards.
Two important considerations have emerged in recent years, requiring the implementation of further regulations to ensure that:
1. Dislocation of the world of learning (still the primary concern even for a university in the embarrassingly low position of 76 in the World University Rankings) will be kept to an absolute minimum.
2. Care will be shown for the precious architectural heritage of Trinity, especially now that it has been enhanced by the iconic Hub Building in Fellows’ Square.

Yours, etc,
Gerald Morgan
FTCD (1993-2002)

Get your papers, papers for sale
Madam –
Congratulations on Issue 1 of the Trinity News, which in my opinion was very good. John Engle’s piece criticising the lame and irrelevant Student’s Union was particularly enjoyable. Careful though, there’s no real reason why the Trinity News shouldn’t be put to the same test, i.e., why shouldn’t it have to seek at least part of its funding from sales revenue if that could be supposed to improve the quality so dramatically? Surely we deserve a great paper as well as a great union.
However on the basis of the current issue the News would probably do much better than the Union.

Yours, etc,
Joanna Staunton

Female tour guide alive and well

Madam –
In response to Ms Mullins’ letter of 21 September (Vol. 57, Issue 1) regarding the employment of female tour guides – I work for Trinity Tours, and have done so for the past three years. I am most surprised that she has never seen me standing inside Front Arch.

Yours, etc,
Aoife O’Gorman
Granduand, European Studies.

Student services must be priority
Madam –
It was enormously disappointing to be confronted in the foyer of the Berkeley last Sunday morning with “Library closed” signs, but more worrying perhaps, was the fact that the feeling of helpless frustration was all too familiar.
I am a fourth year student at Trinity and have, like most of my peers, learned to silently accept Trinity’s consistent, and in some cases significant, inadequacies under the increasingly insufficient and jovial justification that “Trinity has character”, or enjoys a (rather flattering) “impeccable international reputation”.
Of course, the issue of funding is fundamental to the progress that College can realistically make. But the issue of how and where the current funding is spent is, I would argue, equally fundamental,
In the context of a university that is not only unable to offer sufficient 24-hour study space for its students (I am sure you have all had that very character-building experience of sitting on the floor of Ussher 1 waiting for a desk), but is unable to offer any library services at all on a Sunday, it seems to me an absurd decision to spend money on the annual wage of an employee, whose only role is to check the ID of any student wanting to use the Library (Arts Building entrance to the Lecky, and Berkeley foyer) – a job which is tirelessly fulfilled by the simple, reliable and non-pensionable card-swipe machine that permits entrance to the 24-hour study space.
Similarly bizarre was the decision to spend substantial amounts of money on (apparently) technologically advanced, solar-powered, self-compacting refuge disposal units around the College. The question that these examples provoke in me, and I hope in you, is to what extent is Trinity College committed to the academic success of its student body?
It seems to me, that rather than a case of “funding” it is much more simply a case of priorities. Trinity College and the Students’ Union would be well served by remembering the founding purpose of the institution is to deliver the highest possible standard of third-tier education and academic support, to the brightest and most capable students from around the world.
An accurate measure of the standard of facilities currently available to students manifests itself so obviously in the embarrassment felt by me (and again, I hope by you too) when I have to explain to a hapless Erasmus student that yes, the library does close at 4:00 on Saturdays and no, it is not open on Sundays – and I don’t know how to fix the printers.
Please remember that academic excellence begins with the availability of sufficient study-space and academic support systems to enable Trinity’s intelligent and enterprising students to get the most from their all too brief time at College, not with posh bins.

Yours, etc,
Thomas Raftery
SS English Literature

a Solution to drugs problems
Madam –
In your most recent edition of Trinity News, Alice Stephens had an interesting article on Mexico’s losing battle on illegal drugs. It was long on facts relative to illegal drugs in the Western hemisphere, but short on solutions, like most articles published on the issue.
Permit me to offer a modest solution to this worldwide problem. It is time for the Irish Government in unison with the European Union and the United Nations to start the debate on the decriminalisation of all illegal drugs.
Incidentally the group most opposed to this solution are the drug pushers.

Yours, etc,
Vincent J. Lavery
Chair, Decriminalise Illegal Drugs

“Like him or loathe him, you ought to respect him – but don’t waste food”

By Ciara Finlay

According to the Melian Principle, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. This may be as true in life as it is often seen to be in politics. It is on this basis that two factions, of sorts, took to the streets in the heart of the city centre for former British Prime Minster Tony Blair’s visit to Ireland.

Blair was in Ireland to promote the release of his memoir, The Journey, which is selling out in bookstores faster than the American troops went into Iraq. And it is on this basis that protestors outside Eason’s, where the booksigning took place, became, as it were, caught in a mosh.

These protestors, many of whom looked as though they had gotten lost on their way to hang-out outside the Central Bank, chanted “Tony Blair, war criminal!” as they pelted the renowned politician with eggs and shoes. Furthermore, one of the protestors, Kate O’Sullivan, 24, from Cork, went to the extreme of attempting a citizen’s arrest, accusing Blair of “war crimes”. Perhaps one of the stranger aspects of this event was the verbal abuse with which those in the queue for the booksigning were bombarded. These included accusations that they were “West Brits”, an “insult” usually reserved for the special case of Trinity students.

In this manner Blair’s previous relationship with Ireland was blanked like an embarrassing ex. After all this is the political champion of the Labour Party who along with his opposite number, Bertie Ahern, helped foster the Northern Ireland peace process in the form of the Good Friday agreement.

That is not to say that he was “right” per se to commit troops to Iraq, however the legality of the war itself is not a clear cut case. The Iraq war can at once be deemed to be legal based on the “revival” theory surrounding the Security Council Resolutions which originated in the First Gulf War. Conversely, this war can also be portrayed as an illegal act wherein Permanent Members of the United Nations chose to misrepresent the law in order to advance their own prerogative. In this manner the weak may have been called upon to suffer what they must at the hands of the strong.

Nevertheless, freedom of speech is one of the core foundations of any democratic society and on this basis Blair is entitled to write his book, those keen readers who queued for hours are entitled to get the aforementioned book signed, and the protestors are entitled to protest.

All that I suggest is that the latter group refrain from wasting food in this manner, and think twice about throwing away their shoes, it will make the walk of shame home much easier. After all, if they wished to share their views with Blair engaging him in debate is more suitable to creating the desired response. Like him or loathe him, you ought to respect him.

“It was pure cowardice to launch his autobiography in Ireland”

By Roisin Costello

Much has been made of Tony Blair’s recent visit to Ireland. But before any other argument is ventured one question must be asked – why did Blair choose to launch his biography here? He is the first Labour Prime Minister to be reelected for a third consecutive term. Surely one would suppose him a figure of admiration, or at the least of respect in Britain?

In fact quite the opposite is the case. He launched his biography here because he wanted to test the waters. The peace process in Northern Ireland was one of Blair’s greatest successes; surely it would stand to reason to begin here where he would be welcomed, where public opinion would still be in his favour.

And here is where Blair, master of the media during his term in office, went wrong. To begin in Ireland – to use it as a political vehicle – a means of gauging public opinion served only to highlight Blair’s weaknesses. During his time in No. 10 Blair was a PR dream – he was part of the new brand of politics that made superstars out of political analysts and spin doctors. He was the epitome of the new, people-friendly politician that knew the mood of the public and managed to manipulate it to his advantage.

Blair as envoy to the Middle East and existing in a kind of self-imposed foreign relations bubble no longer has the same insight he once did into mood of media or public, no longer seems to realise how to manipulate them to his advantage. And yet we might not have noticed if he had not come to Ireland.

By beginning in Ireland, Blair highlighted the dislike which still simmers in England for him; and, worse, he showed that he was scared of it. If he had begun his tour in England there would not have been flip-flops and citizen’s arrests. There would have been heavy, sensible shoes and possibly some kind of assault. It would have been bad. It would probably been so bad that a large portion of the public would have been outraged that a former PM would be thus treated. There may have been a growing feeling that the negative reaction was so strong as to be unreasonable and there would perhaps have been a great deal of rushing to the aid of Blair – now the beleaguered underdog.

Blair’s visit to Ireland showed he failed to appreciate such a possibility and gave a focus to the negativity abroad thus re-enforcing the amount of negativity that must be present at home. Blair’s mistake was, ironically, a political one – in acting cautiously and starting in Ireland, he missed an opportunity to change the public’s perception of him.

There are many arguments of why he should not have come, many I do not agree with. But the fact remains that Blair ran scared to Ireland at the start and everything after that just served to cement him in the role of a man whose greatest achievements have been forgotten and whose errors have not been forgiven.

by Mark Moore

This academic year will host one of the most important changes in the College for the next decade, the election of the new Provost. This election will determine who represents the College on the national and international stage in this period, in a time of uprecedented change and upheaval in the education sector with key debates on issues of sustainability and independence.

Over the course of this year, this column will outline some of the debates that will shape the election of the new Provost. The overall goal of this endeavour is to help inform the staff and students of the College of the facts in these issues so they can make an informed choice in this election.

Each issue, a number of contributors will give informed views on what the future holds for the College. The contributors will include current students, staff and former members of the college, giving their opinions on the topic.

In addition there will be a guest contributors, experts on a particular topic, providing a moderating opinion. The series will naturally culminate in the heart of the campaigning period, where the final candidates compete for your vote.

In the last blazing weeks of the campaign this column will also meet each of the candidates and invite them to give their opinions on the debates we have hosted here, in order to give an insight into their policies on these important issues.

In addition to hosting debates on defining College issues, this column will also endeavour to shed some light on an election process that has often been compared to the papal election in terms of its mystique and secrecy. To aid the column toward this goal, we will also be inviting historians of Trinity to shed some light on the history behind each stage of the process as it happens.

The goal of this column is to stimulate thought and debate and to encourage you, the electorate, to vote in one of the most defining moments of the next ten years for Trinity. The hope is that with neutral information, the College can make an informed choice on its future.

To what extent do you believe that Europe is the answer to Ireland’s economic problems?

Declan Ganley

Founder and Chairman, Libertas

It’s a very important part of the answer to the problems that we currently face economically. Whether one supports the provisions of the Lisbon treaty or not, all informed observers agree that Europe, to the extent that it provides a country of 4 million people with a free market of 500 million consumers to sell goods into, has been and remains central to our economic well-being.

Economic recovery in this country will not happen by virtue of our turning our backs on Europe. For three decades, The European Union has provided Ireland with financial and Economic support as we ascend into the ranks of the world’s most economically developed nations. Now, the Union’s focus has turned away from Ireland towards the millions of people who were deprived of economic liberty by being forced to spend half a century behind the Iron curtain. Freedom strengthens economies, and raises the standards of living for all who experience it, and now that our cousins to the East have the chance to compete with us, our country faces a stiffer challenge in getting out of this slump than we did in the late 1980’s.

So while we can never abandon the European market, we must retain, and aggressively pursue the right to maintain our own aggressive and distinctive economic model. Our competitive advantage in taxation is being eroded by the flat tax economies of the East, and the increasing abilities of the labour force both in Europe and the Far East. Now is the time to commit ourselves to the goal of achieving a low-tax, low-cost, high-output economy at the highest end of the international value chain. It’s important that we recognise that this will require sacrifices which will be painful in the short term, but it’s also important to remember that sacrificing our biggest market will lead only to ruin.

Frank Barry

Professor of International Business and Development, Trinity College Dublin

To what extent is Europe the answer to Ireland’s economic problems? The question reminds me of the great anarchist slogan that I used to see painted on London walls: “if society is the answer, you’ve asked the wrong question”. Not many people in Ireland appreciate as yet how much of the current recession is of our own making. Our recession is one of the deepest by far in Europe. It was caused by a series of policy errors, many of which date from Charlie McCreevy’s stint as Minister of Finance, though the political roots of the problem stretch much further back. Business people a few years ago voted McCreevy the best Irish finance minister in history. Few economists would agree.

“When I have the money, I spend it”, McCreevy said; “when I don’t, I don’t.” Spoken like a true accountant! But even the most basic macroeconomics course points out the flaws in this way of thinking. Government fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical. When the private sector economy is in a downturn, the state, if it has the fiscal resources, should use them to offset the recession by increasing spending or reducing taxes. Irish fiscal policy, by contrast, has been pro-cyclical since at least the mid-1960s, and stands out among European countries in this respect.

Read More…

John O’Reilly

Auditor, DU Business & Economics Society

Europe was in the past and will be going forward the answer to Ireland’s problems. Its benefits come in two parts; EU aid, and the access to foreign markets that membership of the European Union gives.

In the early 1990s, as we started to move from being the “poorest of the rich” to the dynamic modern economy that was The Celtic Tiger, EU membership was crucial to our growth and enabled Ireland to build infrastructure and invest in education (and broke the Irish psychology of failure for the first time in the history of the state). These improvements will remain with us through this economic downturn. The infrastructure and education investments made possible can still be put to use as the EU looks to help the new member states in a similar position to that of Ireland 20 years ago.

Eastern Europe is now as attractive to foreign direct investors as Ireland was 15 years ago, recently spelt out by Dell’s departure to Poland. With this in mind, we need to now look to strengthen our current competitive position. The causes of Ireland’s initial growth have now been brought level with competing nations, and so we now have to compete harder for investment here.

Putting aside other benefits offered as members of the EU, access to its Single Market is a crucial part of Ireland’s economic well-being. Ireland is a small island and without our exports we are a crippled economy.

Ireland needs to now look to avoid a depression. The recession will flush out any sour areas of the economy and will help in the long term. We need to focus on our unique strengths for growth in the future and once we have rode this recession out, Europe will continue to answer our problems. While not a top priority of EU aid, we can still thrive by using all we now have to compete on a global scale.

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