UCD are unhappy at media coverage

UCD controversy: Whereas UCD declined to issue a statement in relation to the controversy surrounding the participation of the college's hurlers in the club championships, there was unhappiness at recent media coverage of the issue.

"We won't be making any response today to media stories concerning this issue," said Brian Mullins, UCD's director of sport.

But within the hurling club, which is getting ready for next weekend's Leinster final against All-Ireland champions James Stephens, there is anger that erroneous allegations have been made about the college's scholarship scheme.

"It was mentioned on Morning Ireland that we provide free education for hurlers," said one source within the club. "That's wrong on two counts. Everyone gets free education, as there's no fees and the sums of money for scholarships wouldn't come near covering living costs."

Ironically, the concern in the 1990s even after the introduction of scholarships in 1994 was that the UCD hurling team would be in big trouble given the rapidly rising points requirements to matriculate and the growth of other third-level institutions within the college's traditional south-east catchment, particularly Waterford IT.

High qualification entry levels still apply, as UCD doesn't operate any other means of access - apart from publicly approved access programmes aimed at assisting under-privileged sections of the community, none of which exemptions apply to the hurling team. "We could have 150 applicants," said the UCD source, "and by the time the CAO comes out we might have 20 left at most."

Within the club it is believed that the current cohort is exceptional, featuring as it does a number of players of inter-county standard and also of high academic attainment and longevity. For instance two of them studied or are studying medicine, the curriculum's longest course.

Stephen Lucey, the Limerick senior and All-Ireland under-21 medallist, has just completed his studies and Offaly's Brendan Murphy is a current student, having studied science and repeated his Leaving Certificate to gain a place in the medical school. Similarly Paul Ormond, the Tipperary All-Ireland winner, who is injured at present, completed a primary degree before repeating his Leaving Cert in order to study veterinary science. The average enrolment time of an undergraduate is between three and four years.

The current controversy is more peculiar to the Dublin hurling championship than to other county title races because the game is weak in the capital and the emergence of a top-flight club team has made it harder for others to compete.

For instance the UCD footballers, although they have won one county title this decade, aren't as dominant a force in Dublin as the hurlers.

Scholarship money has not increased very much in value over the 11 years of the scheme with the emphasis on including as many students as possible rather than on providing large sums of money for a select few.

According to the club, there are 38 recipients under the scheme and the total annual disbursement, including money from the college, a special fund-raising committee and the Leinster Council (which distributes bursaries of €630), comes to €30,000. The average scholarship comes in at under €1,000 and the highest currently paid out is €1,500. Consequently UCD don't believe that their scholarship systems are a factor in attracting players who would otherwise not wish to attend the college.

"In the early 1990s," continued the club source, "there was talk of crisis, that sport in the colleges was gone. We have done a good job in turning that around and remember that it was the Dublin county board that wanted UCD to get involved.

"Even under a system that involves eight teams playing seven matches to eliminate two, which was expected to cause problems for us with summer vacation time taken into account, college teams survived."