Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

No. I do not believe the Government should be ashamed of itself. The universities in question should be ashamed of themselves. With autonomy comes responsibility and it is not too much to expect that highly paid senior management in our third level institutions adhere to the law without having to be constantly supervised. As I stated in my opening statement, efforts to regularise remuneration matters in the university sector have been ongoing for some time and once the scale of the problem became apparent to the Department in 2005, extensive contact took place between it, the Department of Finance, the Higher Education Authority and each of the universities concerned. The universities have a great deal of autonomy under legislation and the House has placed much trust in our universities to manage their own affairs and they have a job of work to do to regain that trust.

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