Maire O'Brien is the new deputy president of a Europe-wide students' union with 150,000 members. The mother of two from Portmarnock, Dublin, was elected to the post at the recent annual conference of the Open University Students Association (OUSA) in Manchester.

She moves on to that post, having already been Republic of Ireland OU student organiser (a job now taken over by arts student Peter Grogan).

In her new position, Maire will have responsibility for staffing the office in Milton Keynes and for paper- and computer-mediated communication within OUSA, which, as well as producing newsletters, runs about 150 social and course-related computer conferences within the Open University system for the 30,000 students already on line.

Maire is a housewife with two children, aged 19 and 15. She has been studying with the OU for the last five years and hopes to graduate with an honours degree next year. She has already gained a diploma in pollution control, having studied geology and environmental control methods and produced an environmental impact assessment of a waste-to-energy plant. In her final year she is studying oceanography and communicating technology. She has also transferred credits from study undertaken after leaving school.

OUSA provides a social outlet for students of different faculties. It also provides feedback on education matters to the university, having representatives on all regional and university committees.

The European Commission is keen to promote lifelong learning in a European context and Maire feels that the OU "is an ideal vehicle to pursue this empowerment of people". She has found OU students from Northern Ireland "particularly helpful" in her four years working with OUSA, and sees distance learning as the "martini" of education, whose courses can be studied "anywhere, any place, anytime".

She credits her ability to study and to be involved in student affairs at the same time to good time management, but also says that there is now a good branch structure in the Republic of Ireland student association which wasn't there at first.

Asked how her family copes with her being a wife, mother and student, she says her children probably don't know any different. "I've been studying for the last five years and I've found it has been quite helpful to them that I have got recent experience of sitting exams. I knew what it was like for my daughter last year doing her Leaving.

"My husband Barry is also an OU student. He started off in technology, then did some computing, materials science and management courses. But this year he's taking a break. That's one of the beauties of the OU, you can take a break for as long as you like or need and your credits remain valid. Some people actually take 20 years to achieve a degree or get a final qualification.

"The fact that there is no travelling involved is a big plus for me in studying this way. If I were a student at, say, UCD I'd spend about 3 hours a day travelling there and back. People bringing up families and doing other full-time jobs just can't afford that amount of time.

"As well as that, there are no entry requirements for the OU. You can do foundation-level courses and move on then to higher levels. A student will know whether or not to continue with a particular subject after foundation level.

O'Brien had once wanted to go to Trinity College Dublin, as a mature student. "What I had wanted to study there I thought of as geography, but in fact it was earth sciences and environmental studies. I'll apply to do a master's in environmental science there next year and hope to be accepted. "To be fair to TCD, I wouldn't have accepted me either at the time I first applied.

"Now, having the experience, I feel it is useful for mature students to do foundation-level courses and actually discover their own strengths and weaknesses before going into competition with "normal" students, because after 20-something years of not studying, one loses one's confidence. And it is quite difficult to study.

"Having said that, I find that mature students, whether in full- or part-time education, often do a lot better in their courses. Maturity adds not so much to your ability, but to your focus."

"This year's graduation ceremony in Dublin will be the OU's fourth in the Republic. The first two were held in TCD, but the numbers outgrew the venue and the conferrals now take place in UCD's O'Reilly Hall. There should be about 350 new graduates in 1998, from PhDs to regular degrees, MBAs being the largest group. There is also a large number of students who will receive MEd degrees. The majority of OU undergraduates in Ireland now are studying for BSc degrees. Quite a lot of students are studying computing; many are technicians, perhaps, who are gaining credits - with diplomas they can get about a two-year credit from the OU - to top up to degree level.

O'Brien says it is a very user-friendly way of studying, especially for people who are in work. The unfortunate thing about it is that "because of the fees, people who are out of work find it quite expensive to study with the OU". She feels it would be ideal if the unemployed could have their fees paid, especially those who live outside the urban areas who cannot travel and cannot afford to move their families to a university or other third-level institution to gain higher education.