Professor Desmond Fitzgerald:

I thank the Chairman. I will not read out the document I sent in but I will briefly say that I am here today to acknowledge that we have a responsibility as a public body to ensure that we spend money properly and transparently. I acknowledge that I now take responsibility for many of the issues that arose within the university before I took up the post. I will now outline some of the things we have done to address some of these issues.

Before I start I would just like to say that the University of Limerick is an outstanding institution with great staff and students. One of my keen objectives as we go through this process is to make sure that the reputation and credibility of the institution is preserved. Since taking office I have taken a number of measures to address some of the issues. Among the things that I am very keen to ensure we do properly is our duty of care to those staff members who have been caught up in the issues in question, particularly the whistleblowers who have currently either been put on paid leave or have left the institution.

The other thing I am keen to address is the issue of severance payments, particularly with regard to the information that has been given to this committee, to the Comptroller and Auditor General and to the Department of Education and Skills. I have to say at this early point that we are continuing to collect and analyse the information. I would say, however, that I think the severance agreements made were unacceptably high.

I will outline some of the things we have been doing since I took up office. As the committee is aware, one measure was to initially call for an independent review of the University of Limerick. Richard Thorn has been appointed to that role and we have given him every assistance that we can. Within the institution we have appointed Professor Mary O'Sullivan to provide direct liaison with Dr. Thorn. We have also been undergoing a review of the structure of the senior management team and there is currently an ongoing restructuring of that team, looking carefully at the finance department and at human resources in particular. The audit and risk committee also initiated an internal review of some of the matters raised both by RTE and by the PAC, particularly looking at conflicts of interest, the issue of people going out of the university to take degrees elsewhere, and the matter of the severance payments.

To conclude, I want to be clear that I am determined to take whatever action necessary once the review has been completed. I believe that this is on course for the end of September. As I mentioned earlier, I am particularly concerned with protecting the reputation of the institution. It has terrific support from its staff and students and from the community. They have worked hard in the past to ensure the establishment of a university for Limerick and for the mid-west region. It is very important for all of us that at the end of this process the university is put on a firm footing to further develop its academic programmes to provide education, training and research in the region.