If he’s elected, Nathan Murphy hopes to be an “open mind that will listen to everyone’s issues and help as many people as possible.”
The final year student from Closhaugh is studying joint honours politics and law and believes that one of the major issues affecting students is that they don’t realise the rights they have.
“They don’t know there are unions for renters, they only think of unions for workers. It’s such a big part of college, and most people will end up living in Dublin after college so teaching them about this while they’re here is so important because after they leave they won’t have the support of the SU.”
Murphy plans to implement this with workshops from the renter’s union CATU.
“If students have any issue after graduating they already have the fundamental knowledge. Knowing the right way to go about these processes is important,” he said.
If elected he wants to facilitate a commuter hub on campus where students can wait for their transport home.
“I think we need somewhere students that are commuting can relax. A new building with couches, more chargers, microwaves. Safety on campus is very important so we need a safe place for students to wait for buses if they don’t want to sit around Nubar or the U. The U has charging ports I know but a lot of them don’t work and some of them are inaccessible.”
He pointed out that this wouldn’t necessarily cater specifically to students commuting from Whitehall or from the bust stop on the Ballymun Road.
“It would be for everyone who needs it. I know that a lot of students get late buses home. I know myself from commuting, especially from the stop at the Helix that there’s not a lot of light there. And we could add a display with bus times in the hub too,” Murphy added.
Murphy also hopes to improve DCU’s sustainability, particularly in terms of food waste.
“There aren’t any brown bins on campus except in the U. Food waste is a big problem on campus, so much stuff gets thrown away. Even in the accommodation there’s a shortage of brown bins. I know the canteen throws out a lot of uneaten food because it goes out of date so I think they should implement half price for food that’s near its sell by date to encourage students to buy out so it’s not thrown out.”
He aims to increase the amount of water fountains of St. Pat’s campus in order to reduce the amount of single use water bottles being purchased by students.
One of Murphy’s most significant plans involves establishing a local representative forum of politicians in order to get students more involved with their community.
“It would be good to get TDs and councillors from the area to campus to engage with students. If one TD gets an email from one student they won’t give it much thought. But if there’s a forum with multiple students expressing their issues and lots of politicians from different parties to hear the problem then it will hit home more. Glasnevin and St Pat’s are in different constituencies so we’d have two forums.”
During his time at DCU Murphy has been involved with the Harry Potter Society, Politics Society and Ógra Shinn Féin, and charity work is important to him.
“I’d want to do more volunteering work around campus. I know some courses have the Uaneen contributing module which is five credits that they can receive from volunteering. I’d like to work with the future VP of Academic Life to bring that module to more courses,” he said.
“People should vote for me because I have such a connection with DCU, I’ve participated with CTYI since sixth class and I’ve been here every summer in secondary school. I want to make the place as welcome for everybody as it has been for me,” he concluded.
Jamie Mc Carron