Cianan Brennan: UL adopts a united front — for now — ahead of Thursday's governance report

University of Limerick president Kerstin Mey and provost Shane Kilcommins have vowed to keep UL informed of progress on the city centre campus and a new governance committee

UL president Kerstin Mey at an event in February 2022 to welcome students to UL's city centre campus in the former Dunnes Stores site on Sarsfield Bridge. File picture: Sean Curtin

Even by the standards of the University of Limerick, May 25 was a remarkable day.

The university was in recovery mode after a bruising session at the PAC exactly a week previously, wherein its president, Kerstin Mey, had come in for a torrid time at the hands of her interlocutors.

That is not to do a disservice to the committee members who, by and large, asked fair questions of the president. The problem was that she refused to answer most of them.

Some of that stance was, at least, explicable — chiefly that a report by KPMG regarding the €8.3m acquisition of the former Dunnes Stores at Sarsfield Bridge in Limerick City in 2019, a purchase completed with no formal valuation in place, could not be discussed as it is before the courts.

UL at PAC has kicked off. Will be worth a watch: https://t.co/V3dST1u3EY Kerstin Mey, president of the uni, has just made her opening statements in both public and private sessions. Could be a long 3 hours for her pic.twitter.com/NKjcxqa8Hd

— Cianan Brennan (@ciananbrennan) May 18, 2023

But the university president went further — she also refused to answer questions that were certainly not sub judice, the most notable probably being the 23 times she was asked if she had received media training ahead of the Oireachtas public accounts committee (PAC) meeting. It turned out that she had indeed received such training. Why she thought it was something that should not be answered, your guess is as good as mine.

Yes, the PAC meeting was something of a disaster, made all the worse by the fact that the college had shown up — indeed had requested a private session ahead of the public one — in the hope of running with the narrative that all is now well at the institution which has had countless protected disclosures, external reports, and governance scandals to deal with in the past 10 years.

You can’t push the ‘clean slate’ narrative while simultaneously refusing to answer questions of any sort.

Like all disasters, there was both a fallout and an inquest. All week ahead of May 25 there had been rumblings amongst staff and students that the PAC performance could not simply be ignored.

The president sought to tackle those mutterings head-on on May 24, sending a mail to all campus staff acknowledging that much of the criticism of her performance was “completely fair”, but adding that she would continue “to focus on the issues that need to be resolved as quickly as possible”.

The following morning, all hell broke loose.

At midday, word began to filter out from the university that provost and deputy president Shane Kilcommins had left his post for reasons unknown.

Prof Kilcommins had sat beside Prof Mey at the PAC, and had faced some difficult questioning himself, but nothing on the scale of what the president endured.

Word came out on May 25 that UL provost and deputy president Shane Kilcommins had left his post. However it later emerged he is now jointly leading a new strategic governance committee along with the university president. File picture: Arthur Ellis

Theories abounded. One constant from discussions with those inside the university is that the PAC performance had been deemed unacceptable and that it had allegedly been suggested to the president that the governance of the university needed to change.

Regardless, for a period that morning, senior sources believed Prof Kilcommins, a nine-year veteran professor of law at UL, was out.

Nothing happened for several hours, except Prof Mey messaging all staff, inviting them to a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party on May 31 on the campus plaza to celebrate UL’s 50th anniversary.

Later that day, it emerged that Prof Kilcommins was to remain in his post. An emergency meeting was held after 5pm, with representatives of the university’s faculties, Prof Kilcommins, Prof Mey, and UL’s chief corporate officer, Andrew Flaherty, all attending.

It is understood that the overwhelming message at that meeting was that the provost should remain in his positions of deputy president and provost of the university.

At roughly 7pm, a fresh communication emerged jointly from the president and her deputy, communicating as a “fully united executive committee”, acknowledging the “considerable disquiet” on campus, but also advising that Prof Kilcommins “remains in his post” and that a new “strategic governance committee”, to be helmed jointly by Prof Mey and Prof Kilcommins, was to be set up.

Whether that unified front can hold, only time will tell, but precedent would suggest the odds aren’t in its favour.

University of Limerick chancellor Mary Harney with then UL president Des Fitzgerald on Sarsfield's Bridge in November 2019 at the announcement of UL's plans for the former Dunnes Stores site.  File picture: Diarmuid Greene

A meeting of the governing authority on Sunday, May 28, in the shadow of the Mad Hatter’s big top on campus, presumably heard from the two professors.

In a subsequent statement, they acknowledged the “difficult period for everyone” that had just occurred and promised to keep the campus informed of progress relating to the new committee, and to the city centre campus in the former Dunnes Stores site.

A progress report is due to be delivered to the governing authority next Thursday.

Things have been low-key ever since. That will likely change. UL is an institution that doesn’t seem to be able to keep quiet for long.