About 72 academics from UCD's commerce faculty shared additional payments of almost £500,000 on top of their salaries in 1997 and 1998, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told yesterday. The £478,000 in payments were made by a subsidiary company set up by the lecturers to offer Irish and overseas students UCD business courses.
While some of the staff received small sums, one unnamed academic received almost £51,000 on top of his £37,000 UCD salary and six staff members received over £20,000.
The company has since been dissolved and UCD has capped the additional money staff can earn at 20 per cent of their salaries. UCD representatives told the PAC that the company gave the university a "considerable revenue" of £1.7 million and this justified its operation.
The PAC took up the matter following criticism by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who said that the payments did not appear to be authorised by the Minister for Education under the Universities Act 1997. UCD told the C&AG that the payments were not subject to this Act.
The overseas courses were offered to students in Spain, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Singapore, often in association with local partners.
Several committee members said that the level of overseas work must have impacted on the staff's work. UCD denied this and said that the trips abroad were of short duration.
UCD said that the company, Advanced Management Programmes, was set up so that the university would not be liable if the overseas courses failed. The PAC heard that AMP breached company law by not holding annual meetings or keeping minutes on staff remuneration.
One committee member, Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, said that UCD was "teaching some of the best and the brightest" business students in the State, but a company associated with it was breaching company law.
The president of UCD, Dr Art Cosgrove, admitted that there had been some "technical breaches" by AMP, but said this was because it had operated at "arm's length" from UCD. He said AMP had "given the taxpayer and the State great value for money".