Teaching staff at the Athlone Institute of Technology are maintaining a "watching brief" this week following a motion on no confidence in the director of the institute, Prof Ciaran O Cathain. The teachers, members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) passed the motion two weeks ago as a gesture of dissatisfaction with the handling of a disciplinary procedure involving a teacher at the college.
While neither the institute nor the TUI was prepared to comment on the cause of the disciplinary hearing, The Irish Times has been told that it involved complaints regarding profane language used by a lecturer.
Faced with what he described only as an "internal disciplinary matter", Prof O Cathain successfully asked the board of the institute to devolve to him power to suspend a teacher, "in accordance with the statutory instrument".
He acknowledged this week that he did not tell the board the nature of the complaint against the teacher.
However, he revealed that he had not used his power to suspend the lecturer. A caution was issued instead.
A meeting of TUI members in the institute on Monday adopted what was described as a "watching brief".
According to Prof O Cathain the action he took was in accordance with his obligations to "control and direct" the teaching staff at the institute. He said the controversy was in part due to the fact that there was no agreement between the TUI and the institutes of technology on how to deal with such matters.
Negotiations on such an agreement had, he said, been ongoing for about four years. "If that was signed off, it would provide a procedure other than dealing with these issues by statutory instrument."
Mr Peter MacMenamin, deputy general secretary of the TUI, described the incident as an "internal disciplinary matter" and said the organisation was hopeful that the situation could be resolved "within Athlone Institute of Technology".