The Welfare Officer of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has said she will support any attempt to oust the union's president from office. Siobhan Fearon says she cannot initiate impeachment proceedings against Dermot Lohan, but she will support any attempt to remove him from office.
"It's not for any member of the officer board to take procedures against another officer for his dismissal. I've been very careful not to have a dispute with Dermot in public and I don't want to see USI dragged through the mud. However, I will support any vote to dismiss Dermot."
The students' union at Tallaght IT has sent a letter to USI giving one month's notice of a motion for his dismissal. The letter takes issue with Lohan's attitude to part-time officerships in the union, condemns his handling of national council meetings and questions his style of leadership.
Two-thirds of a quorate national council meeting would be required to remove Lohan from office. He would have the right to appeal the decision to a special congress, which would have to ratify the decision by a two-thirds majority again.
Fearon says she also has difficulties with the kind of leadership Lohan has provided and feels he does not take views different from his own sufficiently into account in the way he runs the union. She has referred one disagreement with Lohan to the union's disputes committee.
At the USI affiliation referendum in Cork, Fearon asked at a public meeting whether one of her fellow officers had been correct in claiming that the UCC union executive had declared the USI officers for women's rights and for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights were unwelcome on UCC's campus. She was told that was not the case, but claims she was sent home by one of her fellow USI officers the following day for even raising the question.
Fearon is also concerned that the member unions of USI in Northern Ireland feel "disenfranchised" and get fewer voting rights than their affiliation fees should entitle them to.
Meanwhile, the president of one of the two university student unions still outside USI has said the national student union is characterised by "soul destroying internal politics" and "constant conflict".
In the latest edition of Trinity News, the president of Trinity students' union, Adrian Langan, accuses USI of being more preoccupied with internal bickering than the interests of students. "The theory is that USI is a national students body, fighting and campaigning for students interests, with the ear of the Minister and the support of every student in the country," Langan writes. However "the politics of the organisation" rather than students' welfare had become the prime concern, he argues.
Langan praised the "boring and uncontroversial" Federation of University Student Unions (FUSU), of which Trinity is a member. "The forum has no internal squabbling or in-figthing for a very simple reason - there are no elected positions to fight for. No one can run for president of FUSU. We just get on with the business." USI faces another affiliation referendum tomorrow, when students at NUI Galway go to the polls.
