She became a professor of visual culture last month, after resigning as president earlier in the year over a controversy around a €12.58m property deal.
UL chancellor Prof Brigid Laffan told the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today that Prof Mey received no severance payments after stepping down as president, and her move to the professoriate role came after a period of negotiation.
However, TDs questioned the move because UL does not teach any visual arts courses.
Prof Laffan told them Prof Mey had lost the confidence of UL’s management after the university overpaid on a deal to buy 20 houses, and it was in the college’s best interest to come to an arrangement which would enable it to appoint a new president and move on from the controversy.
Salary bands for professoriate roles run from €135,000 to €175,000 per year.
Prof Mey is at the higher end of this band because of her previous experience, Prof Laffan told the committee.
She said the former president would initially be engaged in research work upon her return from sabbatical.
UL was appearing at the PAC for the second time in five months to discuss the circumstances around two controversial property deals where the university was found to have spent €8m more than it should have.
One of these deals, the €12.58m purchase of 20 houses at Rhebogue, about 3km from UL, has been referred to gardaí for a “possible fraud”.
Prof Laffan said UL will meet gardaí about their enquiries next week.
The university officials told TDs a disciplinary process has been initiated following a governance crisis around the purchase of the houses.
UL chief commercial officer Andrew Flaherty was placed on administrative leave in June pending the outcome of internal reviews and processes.
He was one of two key sponsors of the housing deal, responsible for bringing it through internal processes and procedures before UL’s governing authority approved the purchase.
UL acting president Shane Kilcommins said he could understand why TDs and stakeholders would question any assurances the university may offer.
He said a Higher Education Authority (HEA) commissioned report into issues of concern at UL over the last 10 years had made 35 recommendations around additional controls and procedures at the college.
“It will not be appropriate for the university to offer you assurances in the future,” Prof Kilcommins told TDs. “It’s going to have to be independently verified and that is one of the things we have been working closely with the HEA on.”
TDs also raised concerns about the university’s handling of protected disclosures, spending on an IT system to maintain student records and a 2019 property deal where UL spent €3m more than it should have on a former Dunnes Stores building in Limerick city centre.
It is unclear what UL will do with the city centre building and Independent TD Verona Murphy encouraged the university to sell it.
The committee was told whistleblowers had made five protected disclosures at UL since 2021, and 13 since 2018.
UL’s corporate secretary John Kelly said the HEA’s review suggested this was a high rate for any university.
Mr Kelly said policies around the handling of protected disclosures had failed, but these were being enhanced.
Verona Murphy said she was aware of a disclosure made 15 months ago where the whistleblower was unhappy with how their complaint was dealt with. She suggested further enhancements were needed to support complainants.
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy accused UL of having a “culture of denial” around their handling of protected disclosures and said complaints were not seen as “a means of exposing issues of concern”.
Mr Kelly said a protected disclosure made in 2016 about the stability of UL’s student records system, used to track grades and issue awards, was “not looked at” and “not well handled”.
Questions around the processing of student data were first raised more than 20 years ago, and a project was started in 2015 upon a review by Deloitte to improve how student records are computed.
The university defended spending €8.7m on this project, saying all universities must spend to maintain their systems, but said further spending would be required.
At least €10m has been approved for the project, but the PAC had previously been told it could cost up to €20m to fully modernise and upgrade the student records system.
Prof Kilcommins said work on this project is about 73pc complete, but added an upgrade which was due to go live last month had to be delayed because of the complex nature of the work needed to modernise the record system.
He said spending on the system was unlikely to hit €20m or €30m.
