Sir, - With regard to the article "Why won't women run" by Jim Duffy (July 9th), I was amazed at the lack of research carried out. Even though the piece pretends to be about the lack of females for election to student unions in general, only UCD was mentioned.
If other student unions were contacted, perhaps the title of the piece would have been different. In the Dublin Institute of Technology Students' Union, which is the largest in the country, representing over 23,000 students at all levels of further and higher education, there is no such problem.
Out of 11 full-time officers in DITSU, five are women; therefore our students union does not wish to be associated with this article. If this is a problem in UCD, then the heading should have reflected this. I note that some female staff in UCD have recently claimed gender discrimination in relation to promotions in the college. Perhaps this has a knock-on effect in the students' union. However, in DITSU we do not have any such problem. - Yours, etc., Ross O'Daly, Overall President, DIT Students' Union,
Kevin Street, Dublin 8.