Former University of Limerick president Prof Kerstin Mey has asked the High Court to block a potential UL disciplinary action against her, 18 months after she quit over a botched property deal.
Prof Mey retained a UL professorship when resigning in June 2024 in the fallout from a disastrous transaction in which the university overpaid €5.2 million for 20 student homes.
She is seeking a permanent injunction preventing UL from initiating any disciplinary proceedings against her in connection with the disputed property deal and a hearing of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee in 2023.
In court submissions sent to UL, she cited the settlement agreement she made with the university on June 14th, 2024, which led to her resignation as president that day.
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She wants a declaration that this agreement prohibits disciplinary action over the proposition she misled the Dáil committee over the non-attendance of then UL chief commercial officer Andrew Flaherty at the committee’s meeting of May 18th, 2023.
She also wants to prohibit disciplinary action over the proposition she misled Caroline Jenkinson, an independent investigator engaged by the university, about Mr Flaherty’s non-attendance at the committee.
Mr Flaherty resigned from his post in May, one year after UL was rocked by turmoil over the €11.9 million deal in which it paid significantly above market price in 2022 for student homes at Rhebogue, 3km from the university campus.
The Rhebogue affair was particularly damaging to UL because it previously was found to have overspent by €3 million in 2019 when buying a former Dunnes Stores site in Limerick for a new city-centre campus.
Both deals were later criticised by the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG), the State’s public spending watchdog.
‘Emerged’
Outlining the basis of her claim in a plenary summons, Prof Mey referred to a letter of November 11th, 2025, from UL to her solicitors. Strictly as an alternative to the declarations sought against disciplinary action or the permanent injunction, she wants a declaration that none of the material in that letter amounts to new evidence which has “emerged” under the terms of the settlement agreement.
Prof Mey also sought a declaration that UL was not obliged or entitled under the law on protected disclosures to take disciplinary action against her arising from, or in connection with, matters UL submitted “for further investigation” by Ms Jenkinson.
The Protected Disclosures Act is a whistleblower law that protects complainants from dismissal or penalisation for reporting possible wrongdoing. However, the summons does not set out the background to her reference to the Act.
The former UL president did not reply to questions emailed to her on Sunday and Tuesday seeking comment for this report.
UL acknowledged the case taken by Prof Mey but had no comment on the substance of her claim.
“While the university is aware that proceedings have issued, they have not yet been served,” UL said.
“The university sees no need or any basis for the proceedings to be taken against it.”
It is understood UL plans to fully defend its position in the proceedings.
In a report last year, the C&AG found UL’s €5.2 million overpayment in the Rhebogue deal resulted in a “significant loss in value for money”.
The 107-page report described “significant” due diligence failures in the Rhebogue transaction even though UL had adopted new procedures because of problems with the previous purchase of the former Dunnes site in Limerick city.
The C&AG found it was “difficult to see” how the Dunnes deal “represented value for money”.
A separate report for UL’s governing authority found the settled €10.9 million price on the Rhebogue deal rose by more than €1 million when the final contract was signed only nine days later.
