UCC has spent almost €1.5m on legal costs since 2010

The Irish Times

Irish universities see significant increase in the amount spent on actions involving staff

Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times

 

University College Cork (UCC) has spent almost €1.5 million in the last five years on legal cases involving staff, new figures reveal. 

The university spent €619,400 on court actions in 2014/2015, the last academic year for which figures are available. 

One of the cases is a High Court action by Dr Joan Buckley, a senior UCC lecturer in marketing, who sued the university after not being shortlisted for a professorial position. The action is ongoing. 

UCC also spent €511,600 in the academic year 2010/2011, €170,600 in 2011/2012, €95,800 in 2012/2013 and €91,500 in 2013/2014 on legal costs. 

UCC’s outlay of €1,488,900 accounts for almost half of the €3.3 million spent by Ireland’s universities on legal actions involving staff. 

The next-biggest legal bill was from Maynooth University, which has spent €567,658 in the last five years, followed by UCD (€453,755), University of Limerick (€267,408), NUI Galway (€266,814), Dublin City University(€158,703) and Trinity College Dublin (€126,802). 

The figures were revealed by Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton in response to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael TD Jim Daly

 

Spike 

Mr Daly noted a spike in legal costs in the last academic year for which figures are available. 

UCD spent €236,859 on legal fees in 2014/2015, almost three times what it spent in 2013/2014. 

NUI Galway (€121,515), University of Limerick (€99,372) and DCU (€62,752) all had legal fees in 2014/2015 that were more than twice what they had spent on legal costs in previous years.

 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Irish Times Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 20:54