UL officials keen to enlighten Dáil committee on €5.3m overspend on student housing

The words used by provost Shane Kilcommins, chancellor Brigid Laffan, and their colleagues on Thursday were chosen very carefully given the legal scrutiny the institution is under at present. Picture: True Media

University of Limerick's latest appearance before the Public Accounts Committee was a strange affair.

Strange in that, for the first time in three appearances since June 2021, the officials present seemed keen to shed as much light on matters as possible rather than hiding behind obfuscation.

True, the words used by provost Shane Kilcommins, chancellor Brigid Laffan, and their colleagues on Thursday were chosen very carefully given the legal scrutiny the institution is under at present.

But those qualified words appeared, on the face of it, to be honest attempts to enlighten the committee as to how, three years after overpaying for one site by €3.4m, the university managed to repeat the trick by paying €5.3m over the odds for 20 houses at Rhebogue in the city.

It was also claimed at least one thing said by UL president Kerstin Mey — currently on extended sick leave — at the last committee appearance in May 2023, was not factual.

TD Verona Murphy described it as “a blatant lie”, but was admonished by her chair Brian Stanley for the use of such strident language.

Ms Mey had said her chief corporate officer Andrew Flaherty, who had been due to appear on that occasion, had “a long-standing engagement that he could not get out of” by way of explaining his absence.

However, Mr Kilcommins told the PAC on Thursday Mr Flaherty had been present in Dublin the night before, the morning of, and immediately after that May 2023 meeting, and was texting director of human resources Bobby O’Connor throughout.

He also said Mr Flaherty — the co-sponsor of the Rhebogue deal — had told him he could not attend on that occasion as that particular transaction was the subject of an investigation.

Which of the two tales was true, Mr Kilcommins could not say. But he seemed quite happy Mr Flaherty’s presence at Thursday’s hearing was not required.

“In my view, the appropriate team is here,” he said, when asked by Alan Kelly why the CCO was nowhere to be seen given “his name keeps coming up”.

That was the other strange side to the meeting — the fact the two most prominent stakeholders with regard to Rhebogue, Ms Mey and Mr Flaherty, were not present to answer questions.

“Hamlet without the prince,” as Mr Kelly put it.

In their absence, the committee heard the Rhebogue deal was hammered through in the space of eight months, and was approved by the governing authority, at a cost of €10.9m, despite a lack of due diligence having been performed — something which seems scarcely credible given UL’s recent history of governance failure.

It was also learned a fee of €11.4m was eventually paid without the governing authority’s approval — the result of an unexpected €1m stamp duty bill, with developer Silvergrove knocking €500,000 off the price in order to receive its fee in one go via a “balloon payment”.

That lack of approval might have seen heads roll but that may not prove the case, with the chancellor pointedly declining to state changes at management level would result from the Rhebogue fallout.

Mr Kilcommins, meanwhile, bemoaned the effect the scandal has had.

“We can’t sign off on our accounts, we can’t finalise our governance statement. But there is also the demoralising impact on our staff,” he said.

“UL has never been before PAC for academic issues. It has always been governance.”