One of the most unfortunate controversies in Maynooth in recent years centred on attempts to set up a lesbian, gay and bisexual students' society. An application was defeated in 1992 and a further decision was postponed in 1994. The college was heavily criticised, though obvious difficulties were created by a college which was legally defined as a seminary granting recognition to a gay society.

Dr Seamus Smyth, president of NUI Maynooth, says one of the principal difficulties was the absence of any set of standards, financial and organisational, to deal with student societies. Those standards are likely to be put in place in the near future, leaving the way open for an application from any society for recognition and funding.

Smyth says he has "no great problem" with an LGB society seeking recognition and believes the same standards should be applied as would be applied to any other society seeking recognition. But he is anxious that a recognition procedure should "open up the discourse" on the standards that can be applied to any student society, religious, political or social.