Strike 2025

Since April 29th 2025, IADT Students’ Union Officers have been on strike against the Institute, with 4 main actions taken:

  1. Accommodation Website: IADTSU has ran IADT Student Pad on the promise that a staff member would be hired to administrate the website. This did not happen, putting an additional burden on the VP for Welfare. Since May 1st, all non-emergency accommodation queries are to be directed to studentaccommodation@iadt.ie.

  2. Clubs and Socs: The facilitation of Clubs and Societies have been under IADTSU for a number of years, which has largely fallen to the President and VP Welfare. This work is largely administrative. The Oversight Committee of IADTSU will prepare a recommended allocation for Clubs and Societies, but from September 1st, IADTSU will have no further involvement with the distribution of 25/26 funding.

  3. Institute Engagement: IADTSU will no longer support the institute with inductions, first year focus, or final year matters. IADTSU will no longer promote institute activities online or allow them to be advertised in the Chapel. IADTSU will no longer allow staff to book the Chapel for events.

  4. Committee Boycott: Following the refusal to allow IADTSU to present its Trans Student Survey Report to Academic Council twice, IADTSU Officers began a boycott of all institute committees, including Governing Body, due to the silencing of student voices, on March 10th.

IADT Students’ Union are demanding that IADT:

  • recognises the constitutional addition of the VP for Diversity & Inclusion

  • recognises the election of Sahra Heibe to the role for 25/26

  • stops infringing on the Union’s autonomy by standing in the way of IADTSU’s budget being used to pay this democratically appointed and elected sabbatical officer.

The unreasonable workload of IADTSU officers has, for years, been left unaddressed by Institute management, despite the Institute’s knowledge of officer burnout, mental health difficulties, and constant stress.

  • Lavender-Jane Gartlan, President 24/25

    “I’ve worked in nearly every hospital in Dublin as a student nurse and IADT is the worst place I’ve ever worked.”

  • Seán Kelly, President 23/24

    “Last year, we worked as much as 60+ hours per week to support students. [...] Not only is this workload exhausting, there is also no overtime payment system in place.”

  • Crow Mullen, VP Education 22/23 and 23/24

    “None of the upper managers of the college had even read [IADTSU’s Constitution], [we] were continually talked down to, told to “stay in your lane,” and told our [internal processes] were not to be recognised by the college.”

  • Joe Geary, President 10/11

    “I was under immense pressure, easily 60 hour work weeks, if not more. Eating at the desk. [...] I picked up a few bad habits regarding drinking and smoking and other things, friendships lost, family worried about me. [...] This kind of story was very very common in my time, that the SU president would only last one year because of burnout.”

  • Seán Gallagher, VP Commercial and Social Enterprises 12/13

    “[College management] were trying to [...] make it seem as if they were letting us do things, but in general they were trying to keep a lot of the stuff at bay. When we would try to do things, they would bury us in beaurocracy [...] trying to fatigue us. [...] They don’t really give you support, [...] they do the payroll, that’s about it. They don’t want you to be super active.”

Full Statements from Officers

  • I'm writing to you as last year's IADTSU President to express that I fully stand with the current SU Team in their strike action. For a very long time, a fourth full time officer or support staff member has been needed in the SU (perhaps even several staff). 


    Every officer team in the last number of years has dealt with a massively overwhelming and wide-spanning workload, long hours and subsequent bouts of burnout. My team last year, myself personally, current and previous SU teams have all dealt with burnout and poor mental and physical health due to the massive workload placed upon us.

    Some weeks last year, we worked as much as 60+ hours per week in order to support students, facilitate and organise events, run student inductions, attend institute committee meetings, carry out casework, admin work, run social media, attend AMLÉ (FKA USI, the Union of Students in Ireland) National Councils around the Island, attend protests, run campaigns, run IADT StudentPad accommodation listings and so so much more. Not only is this workload exhausting, there is also no overtime payment system in place for officers as we are paid on a salary system, so we were expected to operate under a time-in-lieu policy. This policy just doesn't work in reality as any time off would mean further adding to the workload and an already small 3 person team reducing further if time was taken off.

    It's important to note here that whilst IADTSU is technically an autonomous union organisation seperate from IADT itself, officer payroll is administered by the Institute, making for a complicated relationship. It's also important to note that IADTSU officers are statistically the second lowest paid in the AMLÉ Dublin Region (according to AMLÉ's Sabbatical Officer Pay Survey Report) whilst operating in and likely having to rent in [the most expensive constituency in the country]. This low pay, combined with rising rents and the cost of living crisis meant that last year we had to approach the Institute about getting a payrise. In the past, IADT management executives have actually expressed support for adding a fourth full time officer or a General Manager for the SU. When we approached the Institute about a payrise, after many discussions and even with support behind us from several local TDs and AMLÉ, the Institute offered us a choice: a fourth full time officer or a payrise. We expressed that we really needed both but ultimately had to accept the payrise at the time.

    Now the IADTSU membership (the IADT student body) has taken radical essential action and added a fourth officer via a constitutional referendum (one which saw the highest percentage election turnout in any student union election across the Island this year). It is vital that the Institute finds a way to fund this role and listens to the students that they claim to care about so much. IADTSU needs healthy and functional officers in order to do their jobs and support students to the best of their ability. I believe adding a fourth officer is only the first step of many that needs to be taken to improve IADTSU and the IADT student experience. I understand how the funding structure works in IADT and other HEIs and that budgets are ringfenced to defined areas but I truly believe that IADT needs to reorganise or source and prioritise increasing IADTSU's funding to facilitate this essential new position. 


    To the entire IADT management executive and President David Smith - I urge you to reconsider your position and find a way to fund this role. Please listen to the students of IADT who voted for this and listen to current and former SU officers. IADT is a really special Institution and a community that I (and yourselves) love so dearly and the SU is at the core of that student experience. I stand in absolute solidarity with the IADTSU team and student body and I hope the Institute does the right thing. 

  • For two straight years, I worked in IADTSU. [...] The level of institutional support remained low across both years [...]. While I fully respect the work of other departments, the workload on both of the teams that I worked for with was incredibly unfair. SU officers are expected to be social workers, therapists, mediators, event planners, and many more that do not coincide with not only the pay but the respect from IADT.

    Following an internal incident in IADTSU, I was continually met with disrespect from management staff. Both myself and our students followed the constitution (which I later found out that none of the upper managers of the college had even read), and were continually talked down to, told to “stay in your lane”, and told our [internal operations] were not to be recognised by the college. [...]

    The other things to mention is the lack of support surrounding officers mental health. I, myself, unfortunately dealt with very serious mental health problems, which meant that I would have to take time off of SU work, however this was never met with anything from the institute. The continued lack of support and respect for the SU made the job incredibly frustrating to deal with, exhausting. The attitude of “well, you volunteered for this role” is incredibly outdated and continues to be the outlook I experienced.

    There doesn’t seem to be any real respect or recognition for any of the work the SU does, even if it makes the institution run more smoothly. It is seemingly only recognised when the institute wishes to either take credit for their hard work, or when students are too loud for the institution’s liking.

    Not only do these officers deserve to be paid properly, but having a fourth officer would only improve the situation for students, especially minorities across the campus who are consistently dealing with the institutions short comings.

  • Certainly the workload pressure that I was under, I can speak to that, obviously, I was under immense pressure easily 60-hour work weeks, if not more, eating at the desk.
I don't know, I picked up a few bad habits regarding. drinking and smoking, and other things, friendships lost, family worried about me, it likely led to the end of my relationship, and I would say that I had a good year, that this kind of story was very very common in my time, that the SU president would only last one year because of burnout. I would say, yeah, my mental health suffered for years and I myself only did one sabbatical year..