LATE LAST Friday night, in the Ardilaun Hotel in Galway, the second day of USI's annual congress was blurring into the third - and the noisy celebrations of Colman Byrne's elevation to the presidency of USI were continuing.

Byrne, the outgoing DIT president, had beaten USI's deputy president Bob Jordan 100 votes to 55, a comprehensive victory in an election many expected to produce a much closer result, and a different outcome.

Some of the Byrne supporters were far from magnanimous in victory, though both Byrne and incoming DIT president Colin Joyce tried to keep the tone moderate. The most vitriolic abuse was reserved for Jordan and unsuccessful education candidate and outgoing western area convenor Ollie Moody - signs held up by some delegates on Saturday morning crowed "Bob Out" and "Ollie Out".

Meanwhile, at tables around the hotel lobby and inside the bar, it was not difficult to pick out those who were disaffected with Byrne's victory. For this was a bitter leadership battle, and the threat of disaffiliation had been used by opponents of both candidates.

The tactics behind Byrne's victory weren't pretty but they were effective. Byrne attracted a broad range of support, including those who felt it was time to disrupt the sequence of successions which had seen the torch of leadership handed down from the outgoing president to another serving USI officer. However, it was sometimes difficult to see some of its aspects without feeling uneasy: the Fianna Fail machine was mobilised and did its job well in a number of colleges, though not without casualties.

DCU's mandate was unclear following a inquorate meeting in the college earlier this month, and attempts to translate what appeared to be an evenly split indicative vote into a unanimous vote of support for Byrne resulted in a stormy delegate meeting prior to voting.

Unfortunately, this year's campaigns also attracted an unpleasant homophobic element which made a mockery of USI's own declared aim of ensuring equality for all students regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. It would be difficult to remember any previous USI congress where a small number of delegates indulged in the kind of gay baiting which was plain to see over this weekend, or where sexual orientation determined the direction of a vote.

It was also difficult to believe that in the 1970s USI was a left wing organisation, the preserve of Pat Rabbitte and Eamonn Gilmore, the future stars of Democratic Left. The new USI, by contrast, appears to be moving to the right, for next year's president and the new education officer, Malcolm Byrne, are both staunch Fianna Fail men with larger political ambitions and are among the sharpest operators in student politics.

UNHAPPINESS with the attitude of some delegates from the larger colleges led to a walkout by around 40 delegates on the last day of congress, among them representatives of many smaller colleges and a number of university delegates, amid accusations of intimidating behaviour, delaying tactics and abusive heckling on congress floor.

"There were a lot of people in there who were afraid to stand up and say something," said spokesperson Barry Corrigan, outgoing president of the students' union in St Mary's College of Education, Belfast. He said smaller colleges didn't get heard enough on the congress floor and were being prevented from realising their true potential. "Next year's executive should realise that there are a lot of unhappy people here," he warned.

After his election, Colman Byrne said that his first task was "to consolidate our own and make them happy and content in what we have and what we can do". A stormy congress, a bitter, potentially divisive leadership battle and the threat of disaffiliations by a number of colleges, whether they materialise or not, all mean that Byrne may have to call on previously untapped reserves of diplomacy to achieve his goals.

YET THIS WAS also a congress which achieved considerable ends, not least of them a clear mandate to campaign vigorously on issues of particular concern to students, with a national stoppage by students in their own local colleges on the cards for later this year.

Some delegates appeared reluctant to anger college administrations with whom relations were good by engaging in a stoppage, but in that case the administrations had "bought your complicity, bought your souls", said Collie McGivern, president of the students' union in Queen's university Belfast.

The issue of student union funding and the division of the £150 service charge brought some of the most emotive responses from delegates. Carlow RTC is in receipt of £5 per student but students' union president Mark Khan told delegates that it cost around £23 per head to run the union and that only the union's own services, currently under threat from college takeover, kept the union afloat.

Representatives of UCD and UCG also spoke of college efforts to take over student run services. Welfare officer Noeleen Hartigan also made reference, in an earlier debate on anonymous marking, to the possibility that students' union officers could face discrimination from their colleges because of their stance on this issue, especially if USI goes ahead with possible legal action against colleges over the division of the £150 charge.

"This is a fight for the future of out students' unions and I believe that in four or five years time you will see students' unions closing, particularly in the RTC sector," said USI president Colm Keaveney. "No shoddy policy is going to take away our future."

Predictably enough, those women's campaign issues which revolved around women's autonomy (the right of women only to vote for their rights officer and to attend women's congress) also provoked some contentious debate. A motion on the role of the women's campaign caused a number of delegates to oppose the motion on the grounds of unhappiness with women's autonomy, or simply to question the legitimacy of denying men access to women only events in a union which preached equality of the sexes.

"Equality is a relative thing," responded outgoing women's rights officer Fiona McAuley, pointing to discrimination against women in pay and other areas. "Equality is, at present, a notional thing, a pie in the sky because it doesn't exist".

"What autonomy does is to work towards equality. It is a mechanism for equality."

The motion was eventually passed, but not before Queen's president McGivern had added a note of levity to the proceedings by putting forward his belief that USI's women's rights action committee was backed by the CIA and was putting things in the water to stunt male growth.

Incidentally, it was also during the women's debate that in coming DIT president Colin Joyce was asked loudly to "Stick up your thing, Joycer" during a vote, a rather unfortunate reference, in the circumstances, to his delegate paper.

CONGRESS ALSO passed a comprehensive sexual harassment policy for the national union, committed to "challenging and elim-education and at all meetings, seminars and functions of USI", although the composition of the disputes committee which would deal with such matters was more contentious band remains unsettled.

"We have sent a clear message to our members by setting a precedent that students can come up with a mature policy on sexual harassment," Keaveney said.

Reflecting on what he described as a "very progressive" year, Keaveney said that despite the disagreements of the last few days USI was a "very united organisation" and that the "tethered old men running departments and colleges" would face a united front next year.

"I believe USI has challenged and has been confrontational in pursuing its mandate," he said. "We have occupied the Department of Education, we have put students on the streets and we have proved that you cannot sweep 150,000 students under the carpet."