Living a lie for two years

Controversy was caused directly before DCU students went to the polls in the Students’ Union elections last week when it was discovered that two candidates were nominated by someone who was not a DCU student.

The revelations officially came to light following a request by the College View to examine the nomination forms of the candidates in question - humanities convenor candidate Dara McGann and campaigns and information officer candidate Collie Oliver.

Further investigation by the Electoral Committee discovered the nominator, Michael McHugh, was masquerading as a student in DCU since failing part of his course, Financial and Actuarial Mathematics, two years ago.

McHugh has since been very influential in club and society life in DCU, holding a chairperson position on the Poker Society last year and sitting as an ordinary member on the Society and Publications Committee (SPC) this year.

Robert Ó Conchuir, the SU returning officer, told the College View that he was unaware of McHugh’s non-student status until the Saturday prior to election week after “a phone call from a worried candidate regarding this matter.”

The candidate, Ó Conchuir said, was concerned that his form was not valid due to the signature given by one of his proposers, McHugh. SU president Alan Keegan then checked several databases of students where McHugh’s details “weren’t to be found anywhere.”

After a “lengthy conversation” with Keegan on the phone, a emergency Union Council meeting was called for 9am on the Tuesday, half an hour before voting was set to start. At this meeting, Ó Conchuir said that he “and the electoral committee take full responsibility for this serious oversight.”

He added: “However the accused individual has abused and taken for granted the trust of multiple bodies of the university over a lengthy period. The election period of the academic year is a time when much work is done in little time, therefore the returning officer checked as many proposers and seconders in the student database as he saw fit.

“Given the various roles in student life, as well as the general recognisability of the individual accused, it seemed fruitless to examine the individual’s status.”

A motion was then put to Union Council which stated that Union Council did not believe the two candidates involved, McGann and Oliver “at any time… attempted to mislead the Electoral Commission or the membership of the Union” and that Union Council would accept a substitute nominee for both candidates to replace McHugh.

The motion was accepted by 30 votes to two before the meeting ended and polling opened.

Speaking after the motion was accepted by Union Council, Keegan told the College View that if he were the returning officer he would have not checked Michael McHugh’s status either, such was the extent he was involved in student life in DCU. “He was involved in absolutely everything.”

He said that the incident was “an unfortunate situation. It’s a complete mess due to someone just blatantly lying to everybody for a year. I would have called him a good friend… I’m just very disappointed.”

The College View’s multiple attempts throughout the week to contact McHugh were unsuccessful.