Students turn to DIY

The response to the decision by Minister for Education Micheal Martin to increase the college administration and services fee from £150 to £250 was, predictably, a mixed one. Colleges were undoubtedly grateful to see their autonomous income increased. Student representatives, by contrast, were aggrieved not only at the scale of the increase but at the continuing failure to establish guidelines on how the registration fee should be divided between the colleges themselves and student groups.

(Actually, the decision to raise the fee wrong-footed USI entirely. The national students' union met the Minister on Monday, July 28th, and discussed the issue of the fee, but no indication was given that an increase was on the cards. The following day USI issued a press release in which USI president Colman Byrne (FF) said he was "delighted that the progressive approach which was the hallmark of Micheal Martin in opposition is still in evidence in Government". Possibly in an effort to distance himself from such brown-nosing, the Minister announced the increase on Wednesday the 30th; Byrne was transformed overnight from "delighted" to "outraged".)

Many students in the university sector may have noticed by now that they are, in fact, paying more than £250 to their colleges. In UCD, the fee is £280. In TCD, it's £300. In UCC, students pay just over £280, while in UL they pay £280.

Why the disparity? In the absence of sufficient funding from the Government and the HEA, students have decided to use their own cash to build new facilities - sports halls, bars and meeting rooms. Faced with the choice of inadequate facilities - or, in some cases, none at all - and self-financing, students have decided to knuckle down. The most notable of these developments are in UCC and UCG, which boast two of the finest student facilities in the land, both funded by student levies.

UCC's levy-funded student centre, which houses a radio station, a bar, student meeting rooms and shops, proved to be such a success that a similar tactic was adopted in order to build a new sports centre for the university. While its student centre was the envy of most other colleges, UCC's sporting facilities left a lot to be desired.

"It was basically a deadlock," says Martin Clancy, president of UCC students' union in 1995-96 and now manager of the UCC student centre. "The situation was that there had been plan after plan after plan and it was just being kicked to touch. There were too many other college building programmes going on and the government funding couldn't be found. We knew we would be doing it entirely off our own bat."

Clancy and Dr Michael Mortell, president of UCC, reached an agreement: the students would deliver £3 million of the required £6 million funding through a levy and the college would raise the remainder. Students agreed to a £30 index-linked levy in 1996 and the planning of the centre began.

The success of the UCC and UCG projects has encouraged other students' unions to follow a similar path. Prompted by TCD Provost Dr Thomas Mitchell, TCD students voted last year in favour of a £50 levy to build an £8 million sports centre on Pearse Street in Dublin's city centre. This levy, which will remain in place for five years, will proved £2 million in funding for the centre, with the remainder being raised through private donations, and £1 million from the HEA. A further £500,000 raised by the levy will be used to create an artificial playing surface at the university's Santry playing fields.

In UL, a £30 levy agreed in 1996 is being used to fund a £3.5 to £4 million development adjoining the current "Stables" student facility. When completed, the new building will house a new, pub-style bar, a common room and a number of retail outlets. According to UL students' union president Bobby O'Connor, the application for planning permission should be made within the coming months and it is hoped that work will begin on the foundations by Christmas, with the centre being completed by 1999.

UCD Students' Union, meanwhile, is about to get going on a new student centre, following a catalogue of delays and disagreements with the college authorities. These include an eruption of hostilities in 1995 when it emerged that the college had used £24,000 of student fund money to pay an architectural consultancy firm to draw up designs for a centre - without actually consulting the UCD Student Forum.

In fact, UCD provides a salutary lesson in just how the good intentions of students can come up against the brick wall of college bureaucracy. All things considered, the pyramids at Giza were probably less trouble to build than the UCD student centre. Since 1993, UCD students had been paying a £10 fee levy into a special fund to act as surety on a loan necessary to provide part of the finance for the new student centre; other monies have come from the UCD surplus funds account - mainly profits from the student bar. Yet by 1995, almost five years after the fund had been established, the college was unable to confirm the exact amount in the account or the interest accruing. Further delays were caused by a reluctance among certain sections of the college authorities to countenance a student-controlled bar. Finally, in April of this year students voted to increase the levy to £30, which should raise £5 million over 12 years. It is now hoped that the centre, which will be built in the science car park and will include new bars, an entertainment venue and retail outlets, will be ready by 1999, almost a decade after the initial proposal was approved.