The success of Irish universities in raising funds from private sources seems to have provided successive governments with an excuse not to give them the financial support they deserved, the president of UCC said.
At a conferring ceremony yesterday at University College Cork, Dr Mortell said that without their ability to achieve independent sources of funding the Irish universities would not have been able to achieve the successes for which they are now well known.
This did not mean, however, the Government could relinquish its responsibility.
As an example, he said that when UCC recently developed a £14.25 million campus, the State's contribution came to only £9 million. The university had to find the rest through its own resources. and, had it failed to do so, the new campus would not now be in existence.
"It is the diversity of sources of income which are independent of the State that gives a university such as UCC the flexibility to formulate and drive its own agenda," said Dr Mortell, who will leave office next January. "But it is clear that the State cynically uses fund-raising success as an excuse to reduce the level of grant support."
The UCC budget is now more than £70 million a year and the institution is one of the biggest employers in the Cork region.