Accounts for the University of Limerick (UL) for the past two years, filed recently, show that an €8.3 million impairment dragged it to a loss in 2023 but that it bounced back last year with a surplus of €12.4 million.
That compares with a surplus of €10.8 million in 2022 before the university found itself mired in crisis.
UL has been at the centre of controversy following losses incurred by overpaying for student homes and a Dunnes Stores stores site in Limerick city centre. The subsequent fallout prompted the resignation of its president, Prof Kerstin Mey, at the end of August, having been on leave from her post for the previous five months.
The university’s annual report notes that Prof Mey was paid a salary of €215,663 during the 11 months of the financial year that she was in office. Prof Shane Kilcommins, who stepped in as acting president of the university in April last year was paid a salary of €110,117 over the five months from that point to the end of the financial year.
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The figures are the first since the controversy first broke. The financial accounts for both September 2023 and September 2024 financial periods were signed off in March 2025, due to “delays finalising the audit” for its 2023 accounts.
Despite being appointed in November 2023, following the conclusion of the university’s financial year, the Chancellor of UL, Prof Brigid Laffan, said it was “necessary” to comment on the accounts due to the “unprecedented requirement for the University to include two impairment charges in the Financial Statements”.
“The necessity for both impairments arose as the University acquired properties for a price now determined to be greater than the recoverable value of those properties,” she said.
Prof Laffan said the impairments “had the effect of turning a healthy surplus for the period into an overall deficit of €0.7 million”.
[ Plan for sweeping governance changes at UL following botched property dealsOpens in new window ]
She said that the “overall financial sustainability” of UL will not be “materially impacted” by incurring the impairment charges but said the policy, controls and risk-management failures have to be addressed.
The Comptroller & Auditor General’s report, which was included in the financial statement, said the university paid “significantly over the open market value” in the two controversial transaction. It also confirms that UL reported “certain concerns related to the student accommodation transaction to An Garda Síochána.”
Prof Shane Kilcommins said the UL community had been “justifiably shocked” by the situation.
“There is sadness, and anger too, at the damage that the Rhebogue controversy has done to the university’s reputation. UL has been in the media for the wrong reasons,” he said.
The university and its subsidiaries incurred a surplus of €12.44 million after academic fee income reached a new peak last year at €133 million. The income stream has steadily increased in each of the past four years, with the primary source being undergraduate fees.
Staff costs at the university last year rose to €223.2 million, up 8 per cent. The university recorded donations of €1.84 million in 2024 and €1.7 million in 2023.
“UL’s success has tended to obscure shortcomings in its governance and internal workings which have become increasingly apparent and problematic in recent years,” Prof Laffan wrote in the 2024 accounts.
