Experts dismiss McSweeney claim over degree mill
One of the experts added that it would be a criminal offence to use the degree in several US states.
According to his CV, Dr Barry McSweeney received a 1994 Doctorate in Biochemistry/Biotechnology from California-based Pacific Western University (PWU) an institution found to be little more than a one-room operation offering degrees over the internet for a flat fee.
Quizzed on the matter, Dr McSweeney told Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin last week that PWU was "vastly different" when he received his doctorate.
However, that claim was described as "rubbish" by a top US degree mill expert and credentials consultant to the FBI, John Bear, who personally visited the PWU office twice in the 1990s.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner from San Francisco last night, Mr Bear said: "In certainty I know that it was no different in 1994 than whenever you choose."
Mr Bear added: "If he were to set foot in any of the eight or nine states that regulate this, then that's a criminal offence and he could be arrested."
Degree mill opponent and University of Illinois physics professor George Gollin also said: "I just don't think that a school that was legitimate in 1994 would have descended to the point where it was being sued by Hawaii."
In addition to being sued by Hawaii for violating state consumer protection laws, PWU featured prominently in a US General Accounting Office probe which found more than 500 US Government employees had received bogus degrees.
Prof Gollin said Dr McSweeney's use of a PWU degree was "really a disservice to Ireland" and questioned how a scientific PhD requiring "significant amounts of lab work" could be achieved at a distance.
With his €120,000-a-year job on the line, Dr McSweeney has not yet publicly addressed the matter.
Yesterday his office again declined to comment other than to say the 2004 PhD listed in Dr McSweeney's official CV was actually obtained in 2002 a mistake the office put down to "administrative error".
