Deputy General Manager Dominic Doherty has defended his decision to screen questions before today’s Hustings debate.
BY BRENDAN HUGHES
‘Hustings’, the annual SU event in which Sabbatical election candidates participate in a ‘Question Time’ style debate, will take place today (Monday) at 1.10pm in the Speakeasy bar. The panel discussion previously accepted spontaneous questions from the floor. This year however, Doherty will choose questions submitted prior to the event.
Doherty is concerned with preventing prospective Exec members from being verbally attacked at the event.
“Questions from the floor may encourage aggression- it’s not a firing squad,” he said.
Last year, current VP Barry Duffy was bombarded with questions as the student audience realised his lack of knowledge on the SU post.
Doherty also highlighted how the event is voluntarily attended by the election candidates, thus wanting to encourage candidates’ continued attendance in future years.
Gareth McGreevy, the current VP Campaigns and potential SU President, has voiced his support for permitting questions from the floor.
“I feel candidates should be able to answer questions on the spot, and students should have every right to ask us questions. It’s the sort of thing that the new SU Exec will have to do every day in office,” he said.
Stephen Connolly, running for VP Campaigns, asserted the benefit of open questions in “exposing the flaws in some candidates’ policies”.
Hustings will take place TODAY (Monday) at 1:10pm in the Speakeasy Bar. Free sandwiches (with a vegetarian option) will also be provided.
IMHO there shouldn’t be any screening of questions as answering questions on the spot shows up those candidates who stand for sabbatical position’s and have no knowledge of what the job entails.
Not that that complete lack of knowledge has stopped some sabbatical officers from being elected in the past, but what can you you its a popularity contest…
Pre-screening the questions in my opinion is a bad idea. Part of this event should be for questions based upon the answers of previous questions. Therefore I think questions should be allowed from the floor.
Of course, that’s not to say that some screening shouldn’t occur. Mr Doherty in his role as moderator should be allowed to refuse certain questions on certain grounds, be it that they are unrelated, personally attacking the candidate (attacking their policies should be allowed), repetition of a previous question, etc.
I agree that there should be questions from the floor, while in turn not becoming a firing squad or an excuse to get your mates down to humiliate your political opponents to make you look better in comparison.
However, I disagree that you need to fully understand every aspect of your role to run. Not all of the best execs we’ve had over the years knew every piece of info on their offices, but had enough savvy to learn quick and do great work. The onus is of course on the winning candidate to learn and shadow the incumbent before taking office, but to say that you need to be politically-minded etc. will discourage the vast majority of potential candidates. Dominic Doherty put on a handful of information sessions to try and encourage normally apathetic students to come forward and put themselves up for election. They may have no council or board experience, but should that stop them from becoming candidates?
In saying that, being up for election and having absolutely no idea what your future role may be should also be discouraged, but launching question after question at a candidate you just don’t like (and lets face it, thats exactly what would happen) shouldn’t happen, and in that light I believe Doc made the right choice.