Voting on important motions is being delayed after the last two Class Rep Council meetings failed to take place due to poor attendance.
DCU Education Officer Ciaran O’Connor said: “from 330 class reps, not being able to get 30 there is pretty abysmal but again that’s not to say that the CRC system or class rep system is failing.”
Last Monday’s CRC was cancelled because quorum could not be reached. In order to make quorum, ten per cent of registered class representatives must attend.
According to O’Connor retaining the quorum rule is necessary. “It’s important we have these rules because otherwise you could have potentially ten students voting on the policy of the Students’ Union.”
He also added that just because students are “not coming to CRC doesn’t mean they’re not a good class rep”.
He said it was a concern that important motions are not being dealt with and deferred to the next CRC meeting.
Motions that have been deferred include a vote to support a boycott and sanctions on Israel, a vote to make the council “more in touch” and for the SU to undertake a sustainability ethos.
O’Connor suggested ways of encouraging attendance. “Less frequent meetings, maybe something like four a year. Then maybe more frequent faculty convenor class rep meetings. Maybe that could be a way forward.”
Former CRC Chair and Class Rep, Seán Cassidy is “not one bit happy” about the delaying of important motions.
“This shouldn’t be happening. But Class Reps need to be reassured that the reason meetings have gone over time is because we have had very serious issues to discuss such as the repeat USI referendum,” he said.
Class rep for the final year Journalism class, Tommy Rooney said: “Maybe it’s not such a good idea having massive Class Rep meetings, maybe they should be broken down into different faculties so it will be more focused. Maybe you’ll get more attendance then.”
Class rep for second year Global Business German, Isabel Strobel said: “I attended them at the beginning but not in the last few weeks. It takes them forever to start to talk about important things. I often was there for two hours and in my opinion nothing was really discussed. So I understand why people stopped going there.”
Martina Brophy
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