Colleges to lose €7m for unlawful payments to staff

MORE than €7 million in state funding is to be withheld from universities due to “unlawful” payments to senior academics.

A meeting of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard yesterday that the Department of Education considered the unauthorised allowances paid by universities governing bodies for several years to be “unlawful”. Two universities were still disputing what they could legally pay their presidents.

Higher Education Authority chief executive Tom Boland said that the “most effective way” that the issue could be addressed was through reductions in the 2011 annual grant allowances to universities.