A member of the governing body of University College Cork has criticised college president Prof Gerry Wrixon for not allowing the Academic Council to nominate academics to a steering committee set up to review the university's structures.
Prof Patricia Coughlan told a protest of over 100 mainly administrative staff that the council had not been allowed to nominate any members to sit on the steering group, and while there were academics on the committee, they had been appointed directly by Prof Wrixon.
"We feel very strongly as academics that we should be able to choose our representatives," said Prof Coughlan. However, the steering group chairman, Mr Joe Gantly, yesterday sent invitations to both non-academic staff representative on the governing body, Ms Mary Steele, and Students' Union president, Mr Frank Milling, to become part of the group charged with looking at university structures.
Ms Steele said that she will be consulting the inter-union group which represents all 2,000 staff at UCC on Monday, and with her own union members on Tuesday, before deciding whether to accept Mr Gantly's invitation.
A UCC spokesman also said that while the university respected people's right to protest, "it seemed a bit silly to have a protest seeking to achieve something that had already been achieved", namely the invitation to both representatives of the administrative staff and the students' union to join the steering group.