WITH just four weeks to the referendum, Carlow’s third-level students are making their voices heard in a big way in support of repealing the Eight Amendment on 25 May.

On Wednesday last, Carlow College students’ union (SU) held an internal referendum to decide the union’s stance on the matter. The option to ‘Campaign for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution’ came out on top. It received 65% of the votes. The option to ‘Protect the Eighth Amendment’ received 10%, with the remaining 25% of students voting for a ‘no stance’ position to be adopted by the students’ union.

“We are one of the last ones to actually finalise a stance on it, given that we are one of the oldest Catholic institutions in Ireland,” said student union president Adam Clarke. “So the result was a bit up in the air, to be honest.”

But the vote recorded one of the highest turnout rates of students in the country, with approximately a quarter of the student body coming out to lend their voice to the debate.

“That’s 111 students in a college of about 430,” said Adam. “That’s about 25% of our student body. And when you count that students are getting ready to break for the summer, students that have exams and are on placement at the minute, that’s a great turnout. I was very happy with that.”

Adam spoke highly of the work that the students had achieved in the run-up to the vote, calling it “a movement fully driven by the students themselves” to urge the SU to have its position officially recognised.

“A group of students got together and presented us with a petition of 100 signatures, which, by our own SU constitution, means that we have to hold a referendum on the issue,” said Adam. “I am very proud of our students in that regard. It was the result of an entirely student-driven movement.”

IT Carlow has also witnessed a huge response from its students wanting their voices to be heard in the last number of months.

Aoife Duff, vice-president for entertainment and communications, noted that “no matter what side of the fence students are on, they want to be registered to vote”.

IT Carlow has held a number of registration drives since November and “we have been working on this issue for two years now”, she said.

Aoife, who is also taking the lead on the IT Carlow Students for Choice taskforce, has been amazed by the number of students registering to vote and is optimistic about registering even more. “We registered 1,000 students in two days during induction week,” she added. “Two weeks ago, we registered another 200 and we are holding another registration drive next Tuesday to register more.”

IT Carlow SU was mandated by student representatives to campaign for a repeal decision to the Eighth Amendment at a conference last year.

This interest from young people has also been mirrored around the country. Nationwide, the electoral register has already seen a surge of over 80,000 new voter registrations, which is overwhelmingly made up of young people set to vote for the first time.