Irish academics earning up to double UK counterparts
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Wednesday April 01 2009
IRISH university professors are paid almost double the salaries earned by their counterparts in Britain.
Other academics here are also far ahead in the pay stakes, with their massive salaries outstripping even those paid at Oxford and Cambridge.
University top earners are enjoying massive pay packages in spite of the relatively low positioning of Irish universities in international league tables.
The revelation comes less than a fortnight after Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe asked university staff earning over €150,000 a year to take voluntary pay cuts for the sake of the public purse.
The average basic salary paid to the president of an Irish university in 2008 was €230,193, plus allowances and expenses -- compared with the average for the comparable UK grade of the sterling equivalent (at current exchange rates) of €209,487, including benefits.
Irish university presidents' salaries were outshone by 29 high-fliers who are in receipt of exceptional remuneration deals, sanctioned by the Higher Education Authority, to attract them into key positions.
The Irish Independent recently revealed the top earner last year was UCD vice-president for research, Professor Des Fitzgerald, whose package is potentially worth up to €495,000-a-year.
However, this was restricted to €409,000 because a performance bonus was withheld on cost-saving grounds.
In 2007/08:
- University professors in Ireland were paid an average of about €136,000 compared with a UK average of €75,459 -- and €88,593 in Cambridge and €81,514 in Oxford.
- Senior lecturers in Ireland had an average salary of €82,668 compared with a UK average of €50,024.
- Lecturers in Ireland had an average salary of €67,502, while the UK average was €41,153.
Ranking
The UK figures are based on tables published in the London-based 'Times Higher Education Supplement'.
No Irish university has made it into the top 200 in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Trinity College was the only one in the top 100 in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings last autumn, when it was ranked 49th.
Apart from national pay deals, university presidents and professors in Ireland were awarded special increases by the O'Brien Review Body, while other academic grades were covered by the benchmarking process.
Mike Jennings, general secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), said there were a number of factors that had to be taken into account when comparing salaries with rates elsewhere.
"The staff workload in Irish universities is significantly higher because of the resources available to universities in the UK," he told the Irish Independent. He said lecturers and tutors in the UK dealt with much smaller groups and UK universities had vastly better infrastructural facilities.
"We have situations where people can't even use Powerpoint because the machinery is not compatible and where students are told not to bring in their laptops to college because the technology of the university isn't up to it," he added.
Mr Jennings said job titles also may mean different things and what appeared as a professor in London may be comparable to a lecturer in Dublin.
"A surprising number of academics initially attracted to apparently high salary levels in Ireland, subsequently declined job offers because of the cost of living, the cost of housing and infrastructural issues, such as public transport," he said.
Mr Jennings said it was a more a feature of "Ivy League" universities in the UK, such as Cambridge and Oxford, to provide accommodation for academic staff.
- Katherine Donnelly
