Government

As the world turns its attention to the race for the White House and the battle for control of Capitol Hill in this November’s Presidential and Congressional Elections, BSc Government student Ben English is preparing for an exciting summer living and working in Washington D.C.

Ben, who is a second year student in the BSc Government Programme, was selected from more than 350 applicants in Ireland and the UK to participate in the Washington Ireland Program (WIP). WIP is a cross-community charity which offers young leaders from Ireland & Northern Ireland the opportunity to live and work as an intern in Washington D.C, while completing leadership training and public service projects. WIP awards each student a prestigious 2-month internship ranging from Capitol Hill to government agencies, entrepreneurial businesses and the non-profit sector.

RICHARD HASLAM: RICHARD (DICK) Haslam, who has died aged 86, was a former Limerick county manager, a leading proponent of local government reform and the driving force behind University College Cork‟s Department of Public Administration (now Department of Government).

As a practitioner and lifelong student of local government in Ireland, he had an unwavering belief in the devolved system but regarded Ireland‟s highly centralised form of national government as the bane of his life.

Mature and sage, both in life and profession, he was big in stature, a good man to tell a story and had a cool head in difficult situations. To his colleagues he was, as one succinctly put it, “a friend, mentor and inspiration”.

On Thursday 17 November 2011, Emily O’Reilly, Ombudsman and Freedom of Information Commissioner, delivered the Annual Philip Monahan Memorial Lecture. The lecture by the Ombudsman was the 13^th in the series honouring the life and memory of Philip Monahan, Ireland’s first local authority manager.

Over a year ago the Belgian people voted for a government to represent them. Today they are still waiting for this government to be formed. In response to this crisis, a group of Belgian ‘independent thinkers and doers’ has organised the G1000 project, the county’s first citizens’ deliberative summit. This Friday, November 11th, the G1000 will bring together 1000 randomly selected citizens to discuss the challenges Belgium currently faces and to develop proposals around four themes.

The Philip Monahan Memorial Lecture has become one of the leading annual events at UCC. Over the years it has attracted speakers such as John Hume, Professor Robert Putnam, Dr Mary McAleese, Senator David Norris, Senator Ivana Bacik and Charlie Bird. The 2011 lecture will be delivered by the current Ombudsman and Freedom of Information Commissioner, Emily O’Reilly. She will be discussing different aspects of public sector reform in Ireland, the role of the Ombudsman and the impact of Freedom of Information legislation.

Our MBS Government and MA Politics students recently attended the annual PSAI Conference in Dublin.
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The second annual UCC Staff Recognition Awards Ceremony was held on Thursday 13 October in the Aula Maxima and Dr Aodh Quinlivan, Director of the BSc Government, was presented with a prize by the President of UCC, Dr Michael Murphy. Aodh was nominated under the category of ‘Enhancing the Student Experience’ and his work in creating the Government Times newsletter was cited.

Pictured (left to right): Dr. Michael B. Murphy, President & Dr. Aodh Quinlivan, Department of Government.

Graduates of the MComm (Government and Public Policy)

Pictured (Left to Right): Lt Cdr Patrick Harkin, Bryan Rose and Frank Ryan, Spring Graduation 2010, UCC

Dr. Clodagh Harris was recently invited to act as discussant at the launch of a report by the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUIG in the Royal Irish Academy Dublin.

Reforming the European Commission by Dr Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan (published by Palgrave Macmillan) was officially launched in UCC on Tuesday 3 May by Professor Brigid Laffan of UCD in conjunction with the President of UCC, Dr Michael Murphy.

As a Chinese student, studying for the MBS Government in UCC was an extremely valuable experience for me. It was a good way to have a thorough understanding of European politics and culture, as well as current global issues.

Fiona Buckley attended the ECPR's European Conference on Politics and Gender which was held in the Central European University of Budapest, Hungary ( http://www.ecprnet.eu/sg/ecpg/default.asp ) in mid January.

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On the 28th January Fiona was invited to participate in a workshop organised by the Feminist Institutionalism Network ( http://www.femfiin.com/ ) which was held in the University of Manchester.

On Friday 11 February, Dr. Aodh Quinlivan was the keynote speaker at the Spring Seminar of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland (AMAI). Aodh told an audience of 350 people that he was delighted to see political reform being discussed in the context of the upcoming General Election but he was disappointed that local government and local democracy was being ignored.

A conference funded under the Communicating Europe Initiative was held on 12 February 2011 in the Department of Government in University College Cork. Speakers debated the different options facing Ireland with regards future European integration. This conference, which was opened by Simon Coveney TD, focused particularly on young people’s views since they had demonstrated scepticism towards the first Lisbon treaty. The event was organised by Dr. Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan who secured the funding from the DFA. The conference was over-subscribed which indicates that Europe does matter to young people.

Photos taken by Julia Healy.

Reformcard.com is a tool to rank each party's manifesto  in five key areas in the lead-in to the election: Legislative; Electoral; Open government; Local government; and Public sector. Three UCC academics Dr Jane Suiter, Dr Theresa Reidy and Dr Clodagh Harris are on the independent panel conducting the ranking.

Following an application by Dr. Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan, the Department of Foreign Affairs has awarded the Department of  Government  €3,500 to hold a participative conference for young citizens to express their views on the European Union. This one-day participative conference will be held on 12 February 2011 in the O’Rahilly Building, room 2.12, starting at 10am.

In a wide-ranging speech in UCC last night, RTÉ’s Charlie Bird spoke of the ever-increasing speed of the news cycle and warned of falling journalistic standards. Bird was speaking at the Department of Government’s 12^th Annual Philip Monahan Memorial Lecture, a series which commemorates Ireland’s first local authority manager who served in Cork city as Commissioner and Manager from 1924-1959.

Fiona Buckley, lecturer in the Department of Government, University College Cork (UCC), has been awarded the 2010 Teaching and Learning award of the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI).  The award was presented at the PSAI annual conference held in Dublin this weekend.