THERE WAS a time when the Union of Students in Ireland was so dominated by the left wing that even walking on the right hand side of the road could lead to allegations of neo Francoist crypto fascism.

Those days appear to be well and truly gone, judging by the difficulties faced in scheduling the upcoming USI southern area conference.

When USI southern area convenor Ian Lucey earmarked April 18th to 20th for the annual conference, he met a storm of protest from some of his prospective delegates. The reason rapidly became clear: a certain political party - oh, alright then, Fianna Fail - was having its ard fheis on the same weekend, and a significant number of southern punters were anxious to show their support for Bertie and the gang.

"We are infested with them," remarked Lucey of the FF students. "They're running the organisation."

Lucey was duly forced to reschedule the conference to the following weekend which is, coincidentally, the weekend of the Democratic Left conference. Poignantly, nobody complained...