Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

Remuneration in universities is regulated by the Universities Act 1997. While the Act confers a considerable degree of institutional autonomy, it provides that all forms of remuneration in universities, including allowances, are required to be approved by the Minister for Education and Skills with the consent of the Minister for Finance. It is regrettably evident that some universities did not adhere to the provisions of the legislation. As soon as my Department fully became aware of the scale and extent of the problem in regard to unauthorised allowances in early 2005 it intervened to bring about a resolution.

Following prolonged and extensive contacts and correspondence between my Department, the Department of Finance, the Higher Education Authority and each of the universities concerned, agreement was finally reached in April 2009 which provided for the cessation of the unapproved allowances in the case of senior staff in universities comprehended by the review body. This regularised the remuneration of the individuals concerned apart from a limited number of outstanding issues in some universities.

Under the current legislation my Department is limited in its options in respect of the imposition of penalties to deal with breaches. While the extra payments were ceased in April 2009, in most cases this did not have retrospective effect. In view of possible contractual entitlements there are significant legal obstacles to recovering unauthorised payments from individuals. That said, my Department adopted an approach of withholding both review body and general round pay increases from their due dates pending regularisation. In addition, the question of imposing a financial penalty on particular universities involved in making unauthorised payments will be considered further with the HEA.

My Department has sought and received unequivocal commitments from each university where unapproved allowances were paid that in future it will adhere to the provisions of the Universities Act.

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