UL staff learn president is on sick leave from media reports amid overpayments controversy
Prof Kerstin Mey will not appear before the PAC due to being 'incapacitated'
UL STAFF and students found out the president was "incapacitated" from media reports ahead of a meeting, to which they were invited to ask questions amid overpayments controversy.
The meeting was held UL’s chancellor, Professor Brigid Laffan, after the university lost millions of euros on a property transaction.
With full attendance in the auditorium, the meeting started at 1.30pm this Thursday at the University Concert Hall without Prof Mey, who is on sick leave.
Multiple staff and students took turn in voicing their concerns over the overpayments row, which saw the institution lose €5.2m after paying an inflated price for 20 homes in Rhebogue last year.
The meeting took place as UL’s President, Kerstin Mey, has declared herself “incapacitated” to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is set to take place on April 11.
Staff and students received an email from UL’s corporate secretary on March 26, stating that “The Chancellor, Professor Brigid Laffan will be on campus this Thursday, March 28 and would like to take this opportunity to meet with you in the University Concert Hall”.
According to a spokesperson for the Postgraduate Students Union, staff were not surprised by Prof Mey’s sick leave announcement. Although, they heard the news from the media.
“We received no formal correspondence regarding the president’s sick leave, which many staff are unsurprised by,” a spokesperson for the Postgraduate Students Union said.
“ULPSU wants to see an outcome from all of this that means students are not the ones bearing the brunt of this overspend for years to come.”
Earlier this week, members of UL Unite said the sole trade union had no longer any confidence in Prof Mey, who has been called to resign in a letter regarding the institution’s “crisis in leadership”.
One of the attendees of today's meeting, artist and researcher, Dr Eoin Callery spoke of the “terrible decisions” made my “multiple people”.
“In addition to the problems within governance within the university, we are now embroiled with planning permission, property, in the middle of a housing crisis. It's a terrible look and terrible decisions have been made by multiple people,” Mr Callery said.
“Not by one individual, possibly not by one single committee. I think any correspondence that relates to this deal should be made public. I would hope that if any freedom of information requests come from media or other concerned parties, that they would be treated with the utmost seriousness.
“That may make life very difficult for many of us, but I would hate to see that the University of Limerick, given how public this has become and how it is now leeching into other areas of public life, refused reasonable freedom of information requests about this,” he said.
In response to Mr Callery, the chancellor, Ms Laffan said: “I take that as a statement rather than a question.”
Mr Callery’s intervention was followed by Stephen Kinsella, the Head of the Department of Economics.
“I'm a staff member here for the last 17 and a half years. I'm in the economics department and I'm also part of the immersive software engineering group,” Mr Kinsella started.
“I've been here 17 and a half years and for 10 of those 17 years we have had governance problems in this university. I think it's really important to say that.”