I wasn’t told of expenses concerns, says ex-WIT chair

Another ex-chairman of Waterford Institute of Technology has said he was never told of concerns about the expenses of former college president Kieran Byrne.

The statement from Noel Richards, who chaired the college board from 1998 to 2003, follows a similar declaration a week ago by his successor, Redmond O’Donoghue.

At the Dáil Public Accounts Committee almost a fortnight ago, WIT financial controller Tony McFeely said he had raised concerns about Prof Byrne’s travel expenses shortly after he became director (the title later changed to president) in 2001. Prof Byrne’s nomination to be appointed to a second 10-year term was rejected in May 2011 by the governing body after details came to light of €3.7m spent by the president’s office from 2004 to 2011.

Mr McFeely said he told unnamed members of the governing body on a confidential basis about his concerns but he did not tell the chairperson because he had applied for the job of director and it might be considered sour grapes.

Mr Richards said no concerns regarding expenditure in any part of the institute were raised with him during his tenure or since.

“I feel compelled to say that at no time was I approached with concerns about spending at what was the director’s office or at any other school or department of the institute — whether by a staff member, a member of the governing body or any other internal or external source,” said Mr Richards, a retired businessman.

“As chairman, I would have been on campus regularly — often several times a week — and so was very accessible to staff and management, many of whom I would also have dealt with while Prof Byrne’s predecessor was director.”

Mr O’Donoghue also said last week said that he had approved — and stands over — the chartering for a flight from Waterford to Dublin in 2007 for a visiting academic who was assessing WIT’s case for university status.

But at a PAC hearing on Thursday, it emerged that the €4,200 cost previously attributed to that flight was actually the cost of two other previously unreported private charter flights which brought the same person from near his home in England to meetings in Dublin and back in Jun 2007. This is to be the subject of further questions to senior WIT management at a future PAC hearing.

WIT president Dr Ruaidhrí Neavyn told the PAC on Sept 27 that his predecessor was taking legal action against the college in connection with the selection process in which Prof Byrne was not chosen for a second term.