Help young academics

I RECENTLY achieved the highest level of academic achievement, a PhD.

Yet, I’m left wondering what over a decade of academic study was for.

There was a time when a doctorate would guarantee a well-paid position. Now, in Ireland at least, it guarantees nothing but the right to call yourself doctor.

The moratorium on public service appointments prevents my generation of PhD graduates from gaining academic employment. To make matters worse, there are 191 academics on salaries of over e150,000, with almost half of these on salaries over e200,000. If each of these academics had their salaries cut by e50,000 they’d still earn at least e100,000. Then over e9.5m could be allocated to hiring or holding on to the next generation of academics. If Ireland’s top academics really care about the future of our universities and the students they are paid to educate, then they should take President Higgins’s lead and take considerable voluntary pay cuts, with the condition that this money is reinvested into hiring rather than firing, talented young academics.

Dr Dave Flynn

Lough Rask

Ballyvaughan,

Co Clare