‘Well-paid research jobs should be State’s focus’

The Government should focus on providing more secure, well-paid careers for researchers instead of approving “exorbitant” salaries to attract small numbers of leading figures to work here, a union has said.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) was responding to the recent approval by government departments to allow further exceptions to pay caps in order to attract “world-leading researchers” in limited circumstances.

The €250,000 limit on pay for up to 10 people recruited under a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research professorship programme is over a third higher than the current €185,000 cap in the university sector.