Universities still paying 100 staff €200k-plus

FIVE universities are still paying 100 staff over €200,000 a year, including more than 30 at University College Cork.

Even after public service pay cuts and reductions in pay for top third-level managers last year, two people at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and one at University College Dublin (UCD) are being paid over €250,000.

All but 11 of the 100 top-paid employees are academic medical consultants, who are included in talks between consultant representatives and Health Minister James Reilly about a pay ceiling.

The others include four university presidents, whose salaries were cut 15% from €250,300 to €212,755 last year. Another seven were appointed under exceptions allowed to universities to pay certain individuals more than agreed salary scales.

The Irish Universities Association (IUA), which represents the seven presidents, said such departures from standard pay are to cover people of exceptional and scarce skills.

“This has arisen in limited instances, most notably in respect of the need to pay internationally competitive rates for some research talent,” said IUA chief executive Ned Costello.

The figures are from a detailed breakdown of the numbers at all publicly-funded colleges on salaries of €150,000 or more, given by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn to Limerick Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan.

A further 91 people are being paid between €150,000 and €199,000 a year, including 71 in the universities, four at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies and two at Cork Institute of Technology. There is one in the same pay band at each of the 13 other institutes of technology and at the National College of Art and Design.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the Government is taking measures to reduce salary costs at the highest levels across the public sector through salary ceilings, while wider public pay policy, which includes the education sector, includes related commitments and reforms under the Croke Park agreement.

All academic grades were subject to the public service pay cut that took effect at the start of 2010 and the staff involved would have been affected by the public service pension levy, which affects take-home pay.

A number of universities were the subject of hearings at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee last year over unauthorised payments of up to €50,000 a year above agreed salary scales to senior figures. Although college bosses said they had autonomy on how they spent their budgets, the Higher Education Authority, which allocates public funding to them, said last night all such arrangements have now ended.

The non-capital exchequer budget for third level fell 7% to €1.1 billion this year and staff numbers in the 26 state-funded third-level colleges fell by almost 1,500 to 18,000 from the start of 2009 to the end of last year. They include nearly 300 fewer staff at UCD and the loss of more than 172 posts at UCC.