Cianan Brennan: New dawn must see University of Limerick cut ties with past

Thursday's appearance before the Public Accounts Committee was a bruising affair but for all the talk of reform, those in charge don’t seem to have realised that UL must sever links with the past, regardless of cost

University of Limerick representatives appeared before the PAC on Thursday. Picture: Dan Linehan

Who would want to be a senior official at the University of Limerick (UL)?

“Not even a year, but it seems like a decade,” Professor Brigid Laffan, chancellor of UL, said on Thursday morning when asked how long she has been in place at the university.

Yes, the beleaguered university was back up in front of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yet again.

It had been flagged well in advance that this was going to be a candid, nothing-hidden event.

This would make a change from previous editions, like in May 2023, when former president Kerstin Mey refused to answer a question 23 times in a row on the issue of whether or not she had received media training before attending the committee.

For the same committee hearing, invitee and chief commercial officer Andrew Flaherty said that he could not attend due to a pressing prior engagement, only to sit in a Dublin hotel room watching the meeting while firing text messages to those who had shown up.

No, Thursday was to be a new dawn for the institution. 

“I am acutely aware that we owe the bodies to which we are accountable a legal as well as a moral duty of candour,” acting chief officer Shane Kilcommins told the committee in his opening statement. 

'I am acutely aware that we owe the bodies to which we are accountable a legal as well as a moral duty of candour,' Shane Kilcommins told the committee. Picture: Arthur Ellis

What transpired was a bruising, relentless, exhausting affair. I spoke to a UL source halfway through and all they could do was blow their cheeks out, spent by the stresses of what we were all witnessing.

The problem was that the assembled PAC members weren’t in a forgiving mood. And who could blame them?

“I was on the last Public Accounts Committee. And UL were in. And in, and in, and in,” said vice chair Catherine Murphy.

And here we go again. I’ve got to say, we get statements of contrition. I want to see evidence of change.

It’s fair to say that sentiment was replicated across the membership. Not everything is politics; these particular public servants want to see some positive progress for an institution whose name has been dragged through the mud for far too long.

There are green shoots of course. It’s clear that the university’s governing officials mean it when they say that their processes, balances and checks are evolving so that situations like that which manifested via the Dunnes Stores building purchase in 2019 and the Rhebogue acquisition in 2022 – deals which saw the college lose a ridiculous €8.2m for the want of basic due diligence on just two transactions – can never happen again.

“I will do one very simple thing,” Professor Laffan said at one stage. 

No capital acquisition in the University of Limerick on my watch will ever, ever be decided time one. I would require it to come back to a second meeting.

Unfortunately for the UL officials present, it’s hard to escape the past. And there are a lot of reminders of the past still present on that campus.

For starters, there are the Dunnes Stores building and the 20 Rhebogue houses, both of them still on the university’s books. The former has planning permission, and the latter is currently before An Bord Pleanála because no permission was ever sought, a situation which led to a warning from Limerick City and County Council.

Professor Brigid Laffan said she would require all capital acquisitions to be brought to a second meeting before being decided upon. Picture: Sean Curtin 

In the case of the Dunnes site, the committee heard that to completely revamp the building would cost in the region of €100m. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. So right now, they don’t know what to do with it.

With Rhebogue, the officials admitted that they don’t really know what to do either. If knocked back by An Bord Pleanála “we would hope to get retention,” said Prof Kilcommins.

That’s “a current risk that you don’t seem to have an answer for” said Paul McAuliffe, Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North-West.

Wexford TD Verona Murphy had an interesting take. 

“I want to see the Dunnes Stores site sold. It has put such a poor taste on UL, you’ll never shake it off. It’s doing you huge damage. Same with Rhebogue,” she said.

It’s hard to conclude that she’s wrong, that for all the talk of reform, those in charge don’t seem to have realised that you have to cut ties with the past to truly move on, regardless of cost.

Which brings us to the former president Kerstin Mey, who we were told is now on a year’s sabbatical on a salary of €175,000 as a professor, despite having no course to teach.

Former UL president Kerstin Mey is on a year’s sabbatical on a €175,000 salary. Picture: Sean Curtin

“She will not be short of things to do,” said Prof Laffan, adding that in this situation “there are no ideal outcomes”.

This would seem to miss the point. Forget the legal imperatives, or what’s “normal” practice in terms of an official moving back into academia, as Prof Laffan described it.

Prof Mey presided over Rhebogue, one of the worst business deals imaginable. The university’s capital funding was cut by the Government on her watch because it simply could not get its house in order.

If she returns as a tenured professor, does that impact the university's bid to escape its label of dysfunctionality?