In May or June, decades of campaigning will be nearly over. One of the largest social issues of the last 40 years could be resolved. If the referendum on the eighth amendment is successful, it will change the lives of millions of Irish women.
It’s not perverse, then, to see students’ unions across the country pouring time and energy into a campaign that has attracted worldwide attention. Indeed, it would be odd if they weren’t. Within five months, the eighth amendment might yet be repealed. “Repeal” might never adorn a Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) poster again. And while there’ll still be legislative battles to win and the fight for abortion rights will continue, students’ unions will be able to return to the dozens of other issues that require urgent attention.
So questioning the current priorities of TCDSU misses the central point: after the Oireachtas committee vote this week, there are only weeks left in a campaign that has lasted longer than most of our lifetimes.
The union is also far from a single-issue lobby group. Officers are still attending committee meetings, issues like student spaces are still high on the agenda and a higher-than-usual focus on repeal doesn’t mean that other issues, from accommodation to LGBT rights, won’t get their time in the sun.
Just as a students’ union should never be a single-issue lobby group, it would be naive to expect a union to have the resources to properly run several high-profile campaigns at once. Of course, officers should engage, support and facilitate others – that’s why Fossil Free TCD was so successful – but if the union was to pick a predominant issue, it makes perfect sense that it would be repeal. Why? Because victory is in touching distance, because referendums are difficult and unpredictable and because students will play a vital role in winning it.
This isn’t to say the union’s approach to repeal hasn’t been lacklustre. Keane has himself acknowledged that first-year students don’t seem wildly enthused by the campaign, while voter registration has been underwhelming.
Yet to suggest a misplaced focus is odd. These are extraordinary times: students who made history with marriage equality in first year can do the same with abortion rights in 2018. When again will the union be so pivoted towards an issue that is a talking point the world over? If the union’s energy isn’t put into repeal now, when will it ever be?
Articles from the Editorial Board will resume on January 7th, 2018.
