 With the upcoming elections happening on the 4th and 5th of March, I sat down with Katie Fay running for president of next year's student union. So, Katie, what made you want to run for SCU president? Before I would have never said it was possible that I could do it and then after my year here as the Vice President for Engagement and Development, I just really gained a lot of confidence and people were like, oh we're going to run again and all these different things and I was like, I actually just felt confident in myself that I could do a good job as president. So yeah, my year here definitely encouraged me to want to run again. So you're currently on SCU, but what do you feel was missing this year, maybe that you could bring next to your assets? Yeah, just in general, I suppose the multi campuses are always a tricky one to try and get on balance. So obviously we're all between the campuses, but I definitely, if I was president, I would like to kind of improve on that and make sure everyone is definitely doing their days. Everyone does a fantastic job this year and they have been really good, but I suppose it's something that has improved this year and I'd like to improve on further. We got different bits down at the SCU, we improved the SCU down at Pat's and so it's been nice to have people around the office and stuff like that. So yeah, just trying to really get that multi campus balance right, yeah. Perfect. And there are a lot of issues currently for students, so what do you think are the most pressing issues up there? Accommodations, obviously huge one at the moment. DCU just announced our 4% rent increase, which we're not happy with at all. We do have a good relationship with the university, so we don't agree on everything, but we can have a lot of conversations about these things and we do get on well in most aspects and then accommodation obviously with a lot of community students because they can't afford to live up here and in general just the cost of education as a whole. So we've heard of students having to drop out because they can't afford to live here or they literally can't afford food or they're working a full-time job because they can't afford to pay the rent and so I'd say accommodation is the biggest one definitely and what I really hope to tackle next year if I'm elected. Perfect. And if elected, how do you plan on tackling this issue? So we sit on so many committees, the Spanish officers, like between all of us, we sit on an outrageous committee, but what we don't sit on is the campus accommodation board or committee which we're not really sure what it actually comprises of, but I would like to sit on that committee considering we sit on literally everything else. It's very important that a student voice is heard on that committee and someone is there to say no, this can't happen because that's not okay for students, even especially if we go a new accommodation block, so it should definitely be a student voice in that whole process just to make sure that it's affordable for students and that's what students need and what students want. And why should students vote for you? This is a little fun. I think I have a lot of experience, this is my fifth year now in DCU, I was class rep, I was faculty rep, chairperson of the Society on the Society of Life Committee, I have a lot of experience here in DCU, I know where the place works, I've built a lot of relationships with staff and students and I just, I really think I'm the best person with the job, I'm passionate about the student movement and I really want, I've started so many things this year that I want to continue, things to do with sustainability and our university sanctuary and all those different things and that I think it'll be a shame before I didn't get to continue on some of those projects. So yeah, I'm just, I'm very passionate about the students and what we do for them. Lovely, and finally do you want to just run us through your manifesto? Yes, so my manifesto as we talked about accommodation is number one on there and that's getting to sit on those boards and committees and so we have a student voice heard all over the university, second is commuters and we've just announced that we're getting work orders on campuses and it's a fantastic thing that students are doing about this year and so I'd like to introduce hot water access for students, more chill out spaces and hopefully some lockers in this building if I'm elected. The university sanctuary, unfortunately at the moment we have two students who are facing deportation and which is outrageous because they're studying under a sanctuary scheme so they should be safe from deportation and so I'd like to lobby the government along with our own university or the university sanctuary and the students in Ireland to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees studying under a sanctuary programme are safe from deportation because it's just, it's not on at all and so I've done a lot of work with student engagement offices here as in my role as a VP of Engagement and Development and so I'd like to work with them and we just, we announced our first ever charity partnership with DCU with Barthesdale, sorry and we've done loads of work on that, I've been down to volunteer in Barthesdale and loads of different bits and pieces going on so I just want to keep working on that project pretty much and then consent is obviously a huge topic at the moment and we have our consent, consent display downstairs and which was unfortunately taken down for a little while but we have a back-up bigger and better than ever as a smart facilitator for the last two years and also on the smart consent committee this year so we rolled out workshops to over 500 first year students at the start of the year which was fantastic and we have a national consent framework in DC, all over Ireland and DC have been starting so to implement it in certain places so I want to just mention that's my job in all layers of DC and I'm amazing, thank you so much, I'm impressed with that. Thank you.