Irish Examiner View: University of Limerick's financial affairs are brought to book

UL president Kerstin Mey was unwilling to confirm whether she received media training. Picture: Sean Curtin  

Representatives of the University of Limerick met the Public Accounts Committee in Dublin on Thursday to discuss the university’s finances.

Meetings with the PAC can range from the boring to the bruising, the latter category applying when committee members exercise their remit fully and examine whether public funds are being spent appropriately, the former when proceedings get bogged down in financial technicalities.

That meeting is unlikely to be filed under boring.

Early on it was revealed the members of the UL governing authority had not seen a KPMG report on the university’s controversial purchase of a former Dunnes Stores site in Limerick. They, therefore, did not know if they were even mentioned in that report, which was a pretty jaw-dropping opener.

UL president Kerstin Mey was unwilling to confirm whether she had received media training for the meeting, or whether she believed the university paid more than market value for the Dunnes Stores site. She first denied, then confirmed, that there had been a public disclosure from a whistleblower on the Dunnes transaction.

This vagueness stood in sharp contrast to the contributions of several committee members who seized their moment.

Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor described as “astonishing” the decision not to share the report with UL’s governing authority. 

Independent Verona Murphy called the university’s appearance before the committee 'an arse-covering exercise'. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Independent Verona Murphy was even more blunt, calling the university’s appearance before the committee “an arse-covering exercise, pure and simple”.

Questions remain about decision-making at an institution when its governing authority has not seen a report on one of the biggest controversies in that institution’s history.

Sharing knowledge is surely a basic principle of that institution, which makes those questions even more pressing.