A STUDENT of Dublin City University (DCU) has claimed that he was assaulted by a bouncer from Pulse Security, the security firm that also operates in UCD.

The student alleges that at the start of the the current semester a member of Pulse Security, who was acting as a bouncer in the DCU student bar, threatened the student verbally and attempted to escalate the situation by suggesting the student would not want to see him outside of campus. The allegation also states the bouncer used his cigarette to burn the student’s arm twice.

The third-year Computing student is yet to formalise the complaint in writing to gardaí and President of DCU Students’ Union Niall McClave, only commented on the situation after saying “we haven’t actually received an official complaint from [the student] about this, so everything I know is what he has alleged in public.”

When asked if other similar complaints about the behaviour of Pulse Security on campus had been made to him, Mr McClave said there had not, and explained “we never have incidents here. We have never had a big fight or anything in the bar.”

Security Supervisor of DCU Estates Office, Seamus Keating told a DCU student newspaper that he agreed with Mr McClave’s comments by saying, “There’s never any big hullabaloo; there’s never the guards getting involved… [incidents] seem to sort themselves out basically.”

However, when asked if there is a generally positive student attitude towards security at DCU, Mr McClave said, “there is a belief that they are a bit heavy handed. I agree that they have been at times a little heavy handed… we would prefer if our security were a little more relaxed.”

This attitude was also affirmed by Mr Keating, who said, “I’m aware there’s been a lot of people complaining about them [Pulse security]. But not officially.” Mr Keating also said this attitude was not prevalent during the eleven year period when Protocol Security held the contract for security at DCU.

Pulse Security has been operating in DCU since September 2008, taking over from Protocol Security, when their contract expired and went up for tender.

Pulse Security also was contracted by UCD to provide campus security in September 2008. UCD SU has received a number of complaints from students about the company who were also criticised for confiscating a large number of UCD student cards at the start of the first semester.

The University Observer contacted Pulse Security who declined to comment about this alleged assault, citing contractual reasons.