Top earning academics reject pay cut request

The country’s highest-earning academics have snubbed a request by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn to take a voluntary pay cut to benefit the State.

Last July, Mr Quinn wrote to the chairpersons of the university governing bodies, asking them to ask people who earned above the Government’s public pay sector ceiling of €200,000, other than academic medical consultants, to make voluntary waivers of salary.

Ninety-nine people in the higher education sector receive over €200,000 in salary per annum, including two who earn over €250,000. However, 89 are academic-based consultants and their remuneration falls under the remit of the health minister.

Mr Quinn’s request relates to the 10 academics under his department’s remit.

Now, in a written Dáil response to Robert Troy (FF), Mr Quinn said: “While two individuals have agreed to make personal arrangements with their employer regarding a deduction of the amount of salary in excess of €200,000, to date there have been no voluntary waivers made for the benefit of the state.

“I cannot enforce a voluntary waiver, nor can I insist that a waiver, if made, follows any particular format. For example, if an employee chooses to waive a portion of his/her salary in favour of a charity or their employer they are free to do so.”

The confirmation of the academics’ refusal to agree to deductions to benefit the state comes against the background of public anger to wider education cuts, with parents protesting last weekend at the constituency office of Taoiseach Enda Kenny over funding threats to small rural schools.

Mr Quinn also confirmed that 84 academics were receiving between €150,000 and €199,999.

Of these, 28 are based in UCD; 12 in UCC; 12 in DCU; 10 in TCD; 10 in NUI Galway; seven in UL; three in NUI Maynooth; and one each in Galway-Mayo IT and DIT.

Mr Quinn confirmed that 280 staff in UCD received between €100,000 and €149,999, with 180 in that salary in TCD and 121 in UCC. There are a further 98 in that salary scale in NUIG; 73 in UL; 66 in DCU and NUIM; 41 in DIT; and six in GMIT.

Mr Quinn first wrote to the seven university heads on July 22 last. He set out the Government’s decision to apply a pay ceiling for future appointments to senior posts across the public service and for CEOs of commercial state companies.

He also outlined the Government’s decision that current incumbents of such positions whose salary was in excess of the pay ceilings would be asked to make a voluntary waiver of 15%.

The department wrote to the five universities in question where academics are paid over €200,000 in October.