Trinity - Abolish the Overnight Guests Policy!

The accommodation Trinity so graciously provides its students is overpriced and dingy, with terrible WiFi, frequently malfunctioning utilities and an almost non-existent maintenance system. On top of the conditions in these flats, we as residents are subjected to arbitrary limitations on our autonomy and personal lives such as the overnight guests policy.

The policy of not letting students sign in guests after 11pm at Halls, and 12am on campus disproportionately limits the rights and autonomy of student residents. It is a paternalistic, dangerous and hypocritical policy.

Firstly, it is paternalistic because it does not treat students as adults capable of making their own choices.

Secondly, it is dangerous because someone might need to sleep at a resident’s place, such as in cases where they miss their public transport and cannot get home. Rejecting them from a safe place to sleep is unacceptable. It makes no sense in terms of controlling numbers because overnight guests can simply come on campus before midnight - as such, in any case, this policy is ineffective and only serves to put us in danger.

Thirdly, it is hypocritical because the same policy does not apply to staff living on campus, such as lecturers or Fellows. The issue has been raised to the TCDSU by multiple student residents over a number of years, and as such we immediately call on College to change the policy to allow student residents to sign in guests any time.

Finally, students should be allowed on-campus any time to access the 24/7 library, society rooms and to leave to get food and return when studying overnight in these places.

College claims that they are doing this for our 'security' and our 'ability to study' and to not be 'disturbed'. They claim that they are doing this for our benefit.

Yet, this is just a paternalistic control mechanism that College applies to us in order to limit our autonomy and indoctrinate us into following authority, forming part of a larger trend to make education a factory process to mould us into the ideal future workers.

We, the undersigned, categorically state that we do not want the overnight guests policy, that we are well able to deal with overnight guests coming into our flats and that we reject the paternalistic embrace of College.