College salaries way off mark
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ORDINARY working people who look back on the so-called boom years and wonder why the rising tide never seemed to raise their particular boats will be interested to learn how university staff awarded themselves glittering prizes with abandon and without official sanction.
While the Celtic Tiger ignored many private-sector workers, the senior public servants in the country's seven universities reaped astonishing rewards. Staff salaries in the colleges cost the Exchequer more than €1bn in a single academic year -- 2007-2008.
An investigation by the Comptroller and Auditor General has revealed a degree of remuneration that will surprise those who liked to believe that a vocation to educate -- even at the highest level -- is its own reward.
Hundreds of senior university staff were paid salaries that exceeded the maximum scales allowed. Bonuses were paid that had not been sanctioned. The University of Limerick paid three people a president's salary of more than €220,000 a year simultaneously. In UCD, just 12 staff members cost the taxpayer almost €3m in a single year and hundreds of thousands of euro were paid out in bonuses.
The Department of Education says it knew nothing about these excessive payments, surely further evidence of light regulation at a time when revenue was flowing into the Exchequer faster than the Government could count it.
It is also evidence of an unjustified culture of entitlement and expectation that pervaded the public service when times were good.
Since then, university heads have accepted substantial pay cuts.
But, not too long ago, when they were seeking increases that would have raised their salaries to above €300,000, they attempted to justify their demands by claiming that their performances matched those of chief executives in major corporations and cited their "mental horse power", their emotional intelligence and their "street-smart, problem-solving skills".
At least they never claimed to be modest.
The country could benefit from such enormous talent and brain power in these challenging times, but the relative silence of academics in the life of the country has often been remarked upon.
The report notes that its information remains incomplete because some staff did not respond to a non-mandatory questionnaire. Surely those reticent individuals do not believe they have something to feel ashamed about?
Irish Independent
