Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would have thought the governing authority was utterly cracking the whip here. The letter further states:

Based on the documentation provided by UL, the Contract amendment, approved by the President (17 May 2023) was not brought to the attention to the Executive Committee, Finance, Human Resources, Asset Management Committee (FHRAMC) or the GA, with the supplemental agreement between the UL and the Vendor signed on 2 August 2023.

It seems like somebody was privately doing stuff in the university. It continues:

Based on the documentation provided by UL, it would appear that the extent of the due diligence commissioned by UL in respect of planning matters, was not disclosed to the Executive Committee ...

There is a similar pattern to RTÉ whereby a small cohort of people were deciding to do things without going through the proper channels. It is an absolute failure of governance. When the staff were brought together, and there were several media articles about it, we could see they were infuriated by this. It is very obvious that reputational damage is not something to which there are boundaries. It actually impacts on the wider university. Representatives from University of Limerick must have appeared before the committee three or four times and very serious issues are just being repeated here.

One of the issues, and it is a fair comment, is about the funding of universities and third level education. It certainly does not help the case when we start seeing public money being thrown around and people paying way above the odds for something and not going through the right processes. That undermines the case and it actually impacts on the wider university system, not just University of Limerick. When some of these issues came to light a few years ago in the previous Committee of Public Accounts, the university sector took up way too much of this committee's time. It was one of the areas in which there were many weaknesses. One would have expected that those weaknesses would have been addressed. It is hugely frustrating to see that is not the case. What has been outlined in that letter pretty much demonstrates that.