Another round in USI finance fight

The President of the students' union at Cork Institute of Technology has resigned from the finance committee of USI in protest at the handling of the union's investigation into its president's expense claims. Matthew O'Callaghan has called for the committee to be disbanded and for an independent investigation into the union's finances. His resignation is the second in as many weeks - he joins the president of UCD students' union, Ian Walsh.

In his resignation letter, faxed to USI last Thursday, O'Callaghan said the decision by the majority of the national council to vote confidence in union president Colman Byrne had "fundamentally undermined the role of the finance committee to present a full and comprehensive report" into Byrne's expenses claims. "Clear disagreement" had existed within the committee as to the content of the final report, he said, and the interim report deliberately "said very little give us more time to discuss our differences".

There are now only four student officers on USI's finance committee, one of whom is Colman Byrne. Two of the other three are former colleagues of Byrne from the Dublin Institute of Technology. One of them, Siobhan Weekes, president of the students' union at DIT Aungier Street, says she is disappointed by the resignations. "They had an important contribution to make and their viewpoints were very valuable."

Weekes says the recent vote of confidence in Colman Byrne at national council was not connected with the interim report of USI's finance committee and it was a mistake for O'Callaghan and Walsh to resign in protest at the vote. "We voted confidence in Colman because he was doing a good job as president."

"When Coleman was in DITSU," she adds, "I was the one storming his office every week to protest his proposal to abolish the position of women's rights officer. Dave Carmody [general secretary of DITSU] didn't always see eye to eye with Colman either.

"In any case we were elected to the committee by National Council, so it wasn't a case of slotting in `Colman's people'."