Security Forced To Remove Pro-Life Campaigners From Irish University
A group of pro-life campaigners from Save the 8th were forced to cease handing out leaflets today in Trinity College Dublin.
The group had established a stall in Fellows Square, outside the Arts Block where TCD Students' Union were helping students register to vote in advance of the deadline for doing so on the 8th of May.
Speaking to University Times Katherine Salvador, a representative of the group, which described itself as being largely comprised of students, said:
"We are a group of individual pro-life students and our purpose was simply to provide information to other students. We were only here for 20 minutes then we were confronted by Kevin Keane [the president of TCDSU] who contacted security to shut us down. For the 20 minutes that we were here, there was a lot of interest from other students and many of them wanted to take our leaflets."
The group were asked to stop distributing leaflets and to remove their stall as they had not sought prior permission from campus security or from the Senior or Junior Dean. Any external organisations looking to distribute leaflets, or set up stalls on campus, are required to first receive permission from one of these bodies, which the group had failed to do, as such, they were required to leave the campus.
Trinity College Dublin Students' Union campaign under a pro-choice mandate after a vote had been put to students. They have been leafleting around Trinity's campus and on College Green over recent weeks and have launched a campaign called #RingTheLads aiming to get students to ring their male friends who they think may be apathetic about the upcoming vote.