Nine motions were discussed, accounts were gone through and officer reports were read without many blips as the Union sat for their final Council of the 2020/21 academic year.
The name of Students’ Union Council had been changed to Comhairle na Mac Léinn at a Comhairle previous.
After standing orders were adopted, containing leniency for the use of Gaeilge by students, General Manager of the Union, Chris Newell, went through the Unions’ accounts from 2019/20.
The standing orders passed with a 97.22% majority.
The first motion was brought to the floor by Vice-President Welfare and Equality Officer and President-Elect Róisín Nic Lochlainn.
Nic Lochlainn proposed that the Vice-President Welfare and Equality Officer goes through consent awareness training, image-based sexual abuse and disclosure training at the beginning of their term.
The motion also mandated that Active* Consent training be facilitated to all class reps, clubs and societies at the beginning of each semester, on top of survivor support campaigns being introduced.
This motion passed with a 97.64% majority.
Barry Sugrue brought the next motion forward, mandating Gaeilge classes for full-time members of the Executive team.
This motion passed with 91.55% of students voting in its favour.
Conall McCallig proposed the next two motions, one of which was dependent on the Levy referendum which took place on April 22nd, falling and another based on the referendum pasing, the eventual outcome.
As the referendum passed, this first motion was automatically deemed to have fallen.
His next motion was to mandate the Union to support the fight to ban conversion therapy.
This passed with a 96.34% majority.
Faye McDonnell was next, bringing a motion forward that would mandate the Union to continue with the online format of Comhairle in the 2021/22 academic year.
92.31% of student reps voted in favour of this motion.
Orlaith McCabe was next to bring forward a motion regarding a spending limit on election campaigns in the Students’ Union.
Students’ Union President, Pádraic Toomey, called a procedural motion 9B on this, as candidates receive a €100 reimbursement from the Union if they receive a minimum number of votes.
This procedural motion 9B passed with an 82.67% majority.
Erin Mac an tSaoir, Oifigeach na Gaeilge, brought forward the next motion, this time mandating the Union’s officers to change their email addresses, and any other email addresses associated to the Students’ Union to their Irish version, i.e. from @nuigalway.ie to @oegaillimh.ie.
This passed with a 76.47% majority.
Convener of Science and Engineering, Aoife Buckley, brought the final motion of Comhairle 2020/2021 to the floor.
This motion was to mandate the Union to change the name of College councils to their Irish counterpart.
This motion passed after some corrections, with a 79.37% majority.
After this, Vice-President Education Officer, Emma Sweeney, and President, Pádraic Toomey, took some time to discuss exams with students before Róisín Nic Lochlainn proposed the possibility of a Full-time Oifigeach na Gaeilge being appointed with extra funding having been allocated to the Union for the promotion of the Irish language.