Education

University of Limerick overpaid €5.2m on student housing project, says president

Prof Kerstin Mey facing deepening crisis in her leadership after student housing project in which the institution overpaid €5.2 million for 20 homes

.The UL campus. The Rhebogue housing project is under discussion with external auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Department of Further and Higher Education and the Higher Education Authority

Arthur Beesley
Mon Mar 25 2024 - 20:38

University of Limerick (UL) president Prof Kerstin Mey is facing a deepening crisis in her leadership after a bungled student housing project in which the institution overpaid €5.2 million for 20 homes.

Prof Mey has told staff UL “paid significantly above market price” for the properties at Rhebogue, about 3km from the university campus, saying the issue was a “major concern” for UL in terms of management, governance and reputation.

The affair is particularly damaging because UL was already set to take a €3 million charge in its 2022-2023 accounts after overspending five years ago on a former Dunnes Stores site in Limerick for a new city-centre campus.

The housing deal will be discussed at a scheduled meeting on Thursday of the UL governing authority, the controlling board which has responsibility for ensuring the proper management of the university.

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That meeting will take place one week after a big majority on a separate committee that advises the president – which Prof Mey herself chairs – said she should consider her position. She had a meeting on Monday afternoon with the committee but there was no statement afterwards.

Still, ten of the 13 executive committee members are said to have signed a letter last Thursday saying they had no confidence in her ability to tackle the housing overspend. The text of the letter, reported by the Limerick Leader, was verified by two people with knowledge of the situation in UL.

Addressing Prof Mey, the letter said: “We wish to advise you that we do not consider it is in the best interests of the University of Limerick for you to continue as president.”

The committee’s work includes advising the president “on matters of strategic and operational significance” and monitoring UL’s approach to risk.

Prof Mey declined to comment when asked via a UL spokesman about the letter. An academic of art and visual culture, she was the first woman to lead an Irish university when appointed interim UL president in 2020. That appointment was formalised for a 10-year term in October 2021.

UL chancellor Prof Brigid Laffan, who chairs the governing authority, also declined to comment. Prof Laffan took office last November in succession to former tánaiste Mary Harney.

The Rhebogue project is under discussion with external auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Department of Further and Higher Education and the Higher Education Authority.

Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley, chairman of the Dáil public accounts committee, said the university was supposed to take corrective action after admitting failings over the Dunnes site deal.

“We shouldn’t be seeing this all over again,” Mr Stanley said, adding that the committee would raise questions of UL at an April hearing.

Disquiet about the housing project spilled into the open last week when Prof Mey emailed some 2,000 staff saying “an issue has arisen” with the Rhebogue deal, citing “new independent valuations” on the homes.

UL acquired the 20 homes from a private developer in 2022 and 80 postgraduate students have been living in them since October 2023.

However, the new valuations were carried out as part of a review of the deal that was commissioned because of concern about the transaction within the governing authority and UL’s executive management.

“The university will have to absorb the resulting draft impairment, a sum in the region of €5.2 million, in our financial accounts,” Prof Mey said.

That loss of value – in addition to the Dunnes site impairment – will lead to a deficit in the 2022-2023 financial year, contrary to a forecast surplus. “This outcome will be funded from the university’s financial reserves,” the president added.

The “fact-finding review” was commissioned in December by the governing authority but UL declined to comment on who carried out the review or the Rhebogue valuations.

Still, Prof Mey’s email said the reviewers were examining compliance, process, decision-making and the governance of “the key aspects” of the deal.

“It is a matter of regret for me as president and I am aware that there is frustration and anger among staff members that this has happened so soon after the issues that arose in relation to the city-centre campus,” Prof Mey said.

Arthur Beesley

Arthur Beesley

Arthur Beesley is Current Affairs Editor of The Irish Times

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