Former WIT chair says he organised €4,200 flight

The former chairman of the Waterford Institute of Technology governing body said he organised and sanctioned a controversial €4,200 flight to Dublin for a visiting academic.

However, Redmond O’Donoghue, who chaired the board from 2003 to early last year, said concerns were never raised with him during that time about spending by college president Kieran Byrne’s office.

Mr Byrne’s appointment to a second 10-year term was rejected by the governing body, under a new chairman, in May last year after details of expenses totalling €3.7m since 2004 became public.

At the Dáil Public Accounts Committee last week, WIT financial controller Tony McFeely said he became concerned with Mr Byrne’s travel claims within months of the president taking office in May 2001. However, although he raised it privately with individual board members, the committee heard the issue was never raised at governing body level.

In 2007, €4,200 was spent on a flight from Waterford to Dublin for Dr Jim Port, who was brought in by the Department of Education to assess the college’s university status application.

Mr O’Donoghue said he was “comfortable authorising and indeed organising it” at the time. He said the college wanted him to visit Dublin and meet key people but flying him there was the only way to organise it in Dr Port’s tight schedule as there was no motorway at the time. “I supported this decision fully at the time and stand over it today. I would do almost anything to advance WIT’s argument for university designation.”