NEW FIGURES show universities paid almost €8 million in unauthorised allowances to senior academics over a six-year period.
The allowances were paid between 2005 and 2011 without the approval of the Higher Education Authority (HEA). This is despite legislation that stipulates its approval must be sought.
Revised figures provided to the Department of Education in recent months show the total figure is €7.8 million, significantly higher than previously estimated.
UCD tops the list of unauthorised payments (€3.58 million), followed by UCC (€1.53 million), Trinity College Dublin (€1.38 million), NUI Galway (€578,000), University of Limerick (€448,000), NUI Maynooth (€272,000) and Dublin City University (€53,000).
The HEA is seeking the repayment of these sums from the universities. But contracts for these allowances mean it is unlikely that senior academics will be docked pay. Instead, universities will be obliged to find the money from within their own resources.
Sources say there is concern that colleges will seek to extract the money from “soft targets”, such as student support services, rather than the pay of academics.
As a result, the authority is asking that significant sums of money be paid directly to it for future campus development, and that the remainder be used to support student services.
The issue of unauthorised allowances came to light when a report by the comptroller and auditor general expressed concern at the scale of unapproved payments.
On foot of this the authority wrote to each of the universities in April last year requesting detailed information on such payments.
The controversy has shone a light on high pay among many senior academic staff in Irish universities. Historically, pay grades in universities have been linked to civil and public service grades.
These allowances were a way of providing additional pay to high-level staff.
Excluding these allowances, information gathered earlier this year by the authority shows that basic pay rates are sizeable for a significant number of academics.
For example, 1,237 employees in the third-level sector earned over €100,000 last year.
Of these, just over 200 earned between €150,000 and €200,000 or more.
The bulk of those earning €200,000 or more are academic medical consultants. There are just under 100 of these posts, with most based in UCC (33), Trinity College Dublin (20), NUI Galway (20), UCD (17) and University of Limerick (seven).
University heads are also on high salaries. The top earner is the head of UCC (€232,151), followed by UCD (€212,755), NUI Galway (€202,118), according to figures supplied to the Department of Education this year. The Trinity provost is paid less because the pay for newly appointed heads of universities was reduced in July 2010 to a ceiling of €200,000.
