Colleges vote on industrial action over merger plan

Academic staff have welcomed decisions of two institutes of technology not to speed up a planned merger but will still vote on possible industrial action over the move.

The governing bodies of Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and Institute of Technology Tralee (ITT) are sticking to the timeframe to formalise their merger sometime in the second half of 2016 after discussing the issue at special meetings on Wednesday.

In a report last December by international experts, who approved their submission on progressing towards possible technological university (TU) status, they were pressed to speed up the merger process.