UCC Students’ Union hits out at proposals to restrict opening hours of campus bars during RAG week

The proposals have not gone down well.

The UCC Students’ Union has hit out at proposals to restrict the opening hours of bars on campus during Freshers’ Week and RAG week in the college. Calls from residents living around the university to limit the opening hours of bars on the UCC campus had been backed by local councillors this week and there had been support for a motion to push the opening times back from 12noon to 5pm. The motion has not gone down well with the UCC Students’ Union, with UCC SU President Aidan Coffey saying that it would be a “massive step backwards”, denouncing the motion as “short sighted” and “detached from reality” and claiming that it won’t address the real issues at hand. In a statement released on Thursday evening, Coffey questioned the move, saying: “What do you think will happen? You'll end up with people in houses and on the streets, and even more hassle for residents. It would be a massive step backwards.” Citing wider problems with the Irish drinking culture, Coffey claimed that “this is further evidence of a society that prefers to demonise a majority of students for the actions of a minority, rather than acknowledge responsibility for presiding over a cultural shift of alcohol consumption in the home, rather than the pub”. The statement continued: “Although supportive of attempts to reduce disruption to residents, UCC SU indicated their belief that local action can have only limited success in the absence of national action on other issues, such as an increasingly prevalent drugs culture and the prohibitive price of socialising in more traditional locations, compared to cheap supermarket alcohol.” UCC Students’ Union run a Student Community Support program during Freshers’ Week & RAG Week which they say has been extremely successful in providing pastoral care to students and assistance to local residents during these periods. Main image via Facebook/University College Cork For information on responsible drinking, check out DrinkAware.ie.