Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 9, to delete lines 26 to 28 and substitute the following:" "student union", in relation to an institute or technological university, means an independent body established by students, with a written constitution ratified by students in a referendum to promote the general interests of students of an institute or technological university and which represents students, both individually and collectively, in respect of academic, disciplinary and other matters arising within the university;".

This amendment provides a definition of a student union as an independent body democratically elected by students for students. The Bill's current definition of student union bizarrely allows the technological university to define any student representative body whether it is democratically elected or not. Obviously there are huge concerns and I have met numerous students' unions about this. The Bill also requires the union to be recognised by the technological university before it can be defined as a student union. My proposed amendment defines a student union as an independent body democratically elected by the students for the students. It requires that a representative group for students should not have to rely on a TU to recognise it, but on the students who recognise it by voting for it.

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