Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 10:36 pm

  On April 13th, the University of Limerick Archery Club hosted the finals of the Irish Student Archery Association’s Intervarsity League. The event was held in the UL Arena, making it the biggest intervarsity ever held. The success of the day was largely due to the hard work of all the members of the club contributing towards the set-up, organisation and running of the event. The day saw the arrival of student archers from all over Ireland and Northern Ireland. The finals of the intervarsity league involves presentations of awards from the categories of the intervarsity and ...

  Hustings for Student Union Sabbatical elections took place last night (Wednesday 13th, March) to give each candidate a chance to convince the packed KBG12 why they deserve their vote. The event was chaired by Darragh Roche who, along with his trusty bell, gave order to the proceedings. Candidates had 3 minutes each to talk about their manifestos and why students should vote for them. After this, questions were open to the floor before a one minute wrap up from each person. Beginning with VP/Academic, Darragh McCoy and Paddy Rockett discussed the issues that they felt needed to...

It's election time again and here at An Focal we're making sure that you get all the information you need to make an informed vote. Below we have the names of each candidate along with the position they are running for and a link to their campaign pages. Make sure to take a look and remember that voting takes place this Thursday, March 14th. Voting is available online on Thursday from www.vote.ulsu.ie President: Tim Foran: http://www.facebook.com/VoteTimForan?fref=ts Adam Moursy: http://www.facebook.com/AdamMoursyULSUPresident?ref=stream Kennedy O'Brien: http://www.facebook.com/pag...

  Recruitment agency Cpl is offering free training courses to those who are unemployed in Limerick. Cpl are putting together a course for healthcare assistants that will begin in March The government have a Momentum upskilling programme where €20 million has been put aside to facilitate courses like these across the country. The Momentum programme will provide those involved with the opportunity of attaining a new skill as well as gaining some work experience. This is a very welcome initiative to the county as the Central Statistics Office showed that unemployment figures from th...

  Minister Ruairí Quinn recently announced the introduction of a new European-wide University ranking system. U-Multirank, the new system which is being rolled out across the EU, expects approximately 500 universities across Europe to partake in the new scheme. The first results are expected to be published in early 2014. These results, however, are based on more than just research in third level institutions. Instead, it focuses on five main areas of a university: quality of teaching and learning, international orientation, success in knowledge transfer, reputation for researc...

  The Constitutional Convention recently took place in Dublin where 52% of 100 delegates in attendance voted in favour of lowering the voting age. A call has been made to reduce the age from 18 to 16 and Limerick Youth Service have shown their support. Dermot Troy, a spokesperson on behalf of the Youth Service, said that if the age was lowered it would encourage teenagers to “take control of their lives.” Many arguments have been put against the motion such as the fact that 16 year olds may not know anything about politics. Mr. Troy addressed this by stating that even people...

  UL has come under the spotlight as the first Irish university to make use of an external debt-collecting agency to recover outstanding student fees. Breaking news of a European tender worth €200,000 annually issued by UCD "seeking expressions of interest from interested parties to provide professional services relating to collection of outstanding monies within UCD" has called into question the current financial affairs of not only Irish universities, but also those of Irish students. With news that the annual student contribution is set to rise to €2,500 from September wi...

With the absence of Oxegen in 2012 it is not surprising that many music fans are craving for an announcement by MCD on this year’s summer festival line-up. Fans will be happy to know that Oxegen’s sister festival, T in the Park in Scotland, have released its line-up for 2013 which boasts an impressive bill including Mumford & Sons, Rihanna, The Killers, Two Door Cinema Club and The Script. But talk of the end of Oxegen as we know it is ripe with a new festival, possibly one which could replace Oxegen, causing quite the stir on social media so could it be time to air out the tent and ...

Lava Javas, Limerick's first Youth Cafe is celebrating its 5th birthday this weekend. The cafe is open to all teenagers across Limerick and is a space for them to hang out with friends. What is unique to the cafe is that it is a youth operated and adult mentored place for young people to show their creativity and express themselves. John Real, manager of Lava Javas explained why the Youth Cafe is such a valuable service saying "The Youth Cafe model encourages young people to take ownership of their space" adding "Our motto is 'for young people by young people'." To celebrate their 5th b...

HMV Staff have announced tonight that their sit-in has been discontinued due to them accepting an agreement from receivers Deloitte, stating that they will be paid, in full, all the wages they are owed. The statement, posted on their Facebook page this evening read: “All shops have now been vacated and an agreement has been handed to Limerick from the receiver Deloitte stating all money due will be paid to staff next week. What more can be said about the heroes who left their families and sat in our shops? Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and love, and this is ju...