Negotiations are continuing between UCC students' union and the college authorities in an effort to avert a strike by postgraduates. The threat centres on the issue of "studentships" - which are payments made to postgrads for assisting with tutorials and practicals in the university.

Students in the history department found themselves receiving as little as £27 per month for their studentship work, up to £100 less per month than students in other faculties, following a cut in the departmental budget. "There is a huge inequity between the funding of history and the funding of, say, economics and sociology," says Alex Horstmann, deputy president of UCC students' union. Horstmann says the university had given "a little" money in an effort to diminish the differences in studentships but that it was not enough to deal with the inequities in the system. The strike threat is still in place, he says, pending further meetings with the university authorities.