There're still waiting at the DIT - for appropriate facilities, for adequate student accommodation, for a positive response for the college hierarchy's quest for university status. Most of all, they're waiting for the Government to decide if they can move to Grangegorman. Olivia Kelly reports

The staff, the students and the administration of the Dublin Institute of Technology would want to be people with bottomless resources of patience: they have spent most of the first nine or so years of the life of the institution waiting.

The staff have been waiting for adequate and appropriate facilities where they can teach and conduct research. The students have been waiting for somewhere to live - some campus accommodation and proper recreation and sporting facilities. The hierarchy is waiting to move up in the world - to secure the coveted title of "university" for the institute.

Everyone is waiting to move to the site of St Brendan's Mental Hospital, Grangegorman, on the northside of the city.

But while the DIT waits, are fundamental problems in its infrastructure and internal relations being left to fester?

The DIT has long suffered from inadequate facilities. Several faculties are housed in old, unsuitable buildings, some of which were falling into a poor state of repair even before the colleges were brought together under the DIT Act of 1992. The DIT now constitutes six faculties, spread over 40 sites around the city. Many sites are long overdue complete refurbishment, but have had to make do with patch-up jobs. Some of these premises are rented, and many are completely unsuited to the their current usage.

"By the Government's own admission, DIT has some of the worst facilities in the country," says DIT president Dr Brendan Goldsmith. "The problem for DIT is that we have a fair amount of space, but it's all the wrong sort of space and it's inappropriate for what we're doing."

The fine-art department at Portland Row in the city centre has probably suffered more than most in terms of the condition and suitability of its accommodation. In September 2001, the building was found to have no safety statement and was served with an improvement notice by the Health and Safety Authority. The TUI, the union representing teaching staff in the DIT, instructed its members not to enter the building. Problems that included a leaking toilet and a collapsing ceiling have since been attended to and the DIT has subsequently appointed a health and safety officer, but, despite patch-up work, the building is still crumbling and unsuitable for its students.

The music conservatory at Portland Row also has accommodation problems, which Goldsmith says largely concern the inappropriateness of the space, rather than the lack of it.

In January this year, the Opticians Board threatened to withdraw accreditation from the optometry course in Kevin Street, citing inadequate facilities among their problems with the course.

Even the newer purpose-built colleges such as Aungier Street suffer from a lack of office accommodation for lecturers and many other college buildings are becoming generally decrepit.

While the academic facilities are in many cases quite poor, other student facilities are virtually non-existent. Despite having the largest student body in the state, the DIT has no student residences and no playing fields. It has one swimming pool, at Kevin Street, and two small gyms at Kevin Street and Bolton Street. Student leaders have been fighting a long battle for these facilities.

DIT hopes the problems above will be solved by developing a new campus for the college at Grangegorman.

"Grangegorman would allow us to move to a situation where we would have facilities appropriate to an institute of DIT's standing," says Goldsmith.

The Government must invest in new facilities for the DIT, he says, and it is the institute's preference that this happens at a new site, rather than attempting to redevelop the existing, dispersed facilities. "If you don't go ahead with Grangegorman, then we're going to have to have a major revamping of existing DIT properties - and that doesn't come cheap. Sometimes it's easier to start again."

HOWEVER, the acquisition of the Grangegorman site is by no means a done deal. The DIT has had its eye on the site since the mid-1990s and made a formal proposal to the Government in 1998. In December 1999, the Government gave approval to the DIT plan.

In January 2000, Goldsmith told The Irish Times that he hoped to see the first students, the apprentices, in Grangegorman by Easter of that year. This didn't happen.

An interdepartmental group including representatives from health (see panel) was set up in May 2001 to examine the matter. It reported to Cabinet just before last Christmas and there the matter has lain since. The DIT is still waiting for a Cabinet decision.

The institute is not sitting idly by, Goldsmith says, and work to improve existing facilities is on-going. Phase two of Aungier Street is due to open this summer and Cathal Brugha Street is undergoing redevelopment work. However, it is not possible to make long-term plans to address the facilities problem while the issue of Grangegorman is still on hold, he says.

"If we know we're definitely going to Grangegorman, then we can do interim plan 'type A'. If we're not going to Grangegorman, we'd be doing planning of a different type at this stage. It's now critical that the DIT gets some certainty about what the plan is."

The confusion and uncertainty is taking its toll on staff-management relations in the DIT. Just under a year ago, a Labour Relations Commission report found that the DIT suffered from poor communications, out-of-touch management and a lack of transparency in decision-making. Most particularly, it said staff felt there was "poor consultation" about Grangegorman.

"The provision of information has been appalling," says Eddie Conlon, TUI executive member for the DIT.

Goldsmith denies the DIT is being tight-lipped about Grangegorman and says he simply has no information to give. "There's nothing to consult people about at this stage - we've done all the consultation we can do until the Government sign up to Grangegorman... People are frustrated I understand, no more so than myself, but it's not that I'm keeping them in the dark."

The dearth of information, and the constant delays involving Grangegorman, has led to doubts among staff about the future of the project. "What's needed is to tell people that there's nothing to tell. There's a communication vacuum and what's happening is rumours are filling the vacuum," says Conlon.

The lack of consultation seems to needle, most particularly, at the middle-management level, the course heads and course co-ordinators who feel unable to plan courses while they are unsure of what facilities and staff they have to work with. The DIT has an ongoing staffing problem whereby lecturing grades are determined by the Department of Education, not the institute itself. This has lead to difficulties filling positions in some courses. The issue could be resolved if the institute had university status, Goldsmith says.

"How can the Department be in a better position to make these decision than I am? I just don't see how you justify that DIT should be hamstrung in that way and the universities have the freedom to make those decisions on purely financial grounds."

THE college may have failed in its bid to secure university status in 1998, but the aspiration is still firmly on the agenda. However, it's another area where the views of the administration and the staff are out of kilter.

"The key rationale for university status was taht the college would have more autonomy in relation to staff matters and so on," says Conlon. "Instead of focusing on the university issue, they should identify the areas where more autonomy is needed and see if we can address them together."

Poor consultation on the university status campaign was another issue staff brought to the Labour Relations Commission. Grangegorman and the university question are closely bound, in that the major improvement in facilities for research would strengthen the institute's campaign.

Grangegorman is the DIT's great white hope, but whether the move will solve the institute's fundamental problems is debatable. If the move does go ahead, Conlon says, the institute would be better advised to build on its current strengths before chasing a new goal.

"The DIT has an identity problem. It needs to come to terms with what it is. It's not a university, it's firmly routed in the IT sector. It should focus on its strengths rather than obsessing about what it's called."