Trinity head in spat with students’ union

THE Provost of Trinity College, Patrick Prendergast, has come under attack from the head of the student’s union over comments that he made regarding ‘fake news’.

At a scholar’s dinner recently he addressed the issue of the Take Back Trinity occupation of the College Dining Hall last month when students were protesting the introduction of a €450 fee to resit exams.

According to a transcript of his comments at the dinner, Dr Prendergast spoke out about the dangers of fake news.

He complained that during the recent student protests, ‘a tweet went out that the college had bought me a penthouse apartment at a cost of €1.95m. Anyone with even passing acquaintance of Trinity would know to laugh, but the story was picked up by the national media. So also was the claim, also tweeted, that students were locked into the Dining Hall.’

He insisted that this was also untrue.

Responding, Kevin Keane, president of the Trinity Students Union, rejected the latter claim and said during the protest ‘the dining hall was closed and access to toilets was blocked to the protesters. It is the case that it was not possible to get food or water in to the occupiers.’