Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Nos. 726B and 743B, dated 8 July and 14 July, respectively, are from Professor Kerstin Mey of University of Limerick, who was before the committee on 17 June, and are arising from the committee's request for information during that meeting. No. 726B specifically addresses the committee's request for a copy of the report published by Ms Mairéad McKenna in regard to protective disclosures at University of Limerick. The recommendations of the report were provided to the committee last March. That was correspondence R0410. The university has requested the committee to "confirm that it is exercising its statutory powers to compel the disclosure of the Records, that the Committee considers the disclosure of the Records (as opposed to extracts or summaries of same) to be required by law, and that the Committee will handle the Records with due care in accordance with data protection law”. University of Limerick, UL, stated that it would furnish the committee with all information that the committee requested, once it received a response to this request. The secretariat responded on 9 July and advised UL that the committee would consider the request in relation to the McKenna report, and that UL should respond in the meantime to 20 other items requested in the letter, which are dealt with in No. 743B. UL stated that the McKenna report contains personal data relating to internal employment matters within the university and that it has a legal obligation under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and GDPR to protect that. The president of UL goes on to note that is why only recommendations arising from the report have been previously made available to the committee. UL appears to be raising the same concerns in relation to former presidents' contracts, although it gave an undertaking to provide these to the committee at the meeting.

I will open this up to the floor. Deputy Catherine Murphy flagged this item. I suggest that we consider this further when we are next in private session, as there are a number of procedural issues which we would need to consider before making a decision on how we proceed. The private matters are where there are named individuals and employees. We need to be sensitive to that. Is it agreed to note and publish this item and to consider the matter further in private session? Agreed. Is Deputy Imelda Munster okay with that?