Two Lecturers in TCD with long service have been made redundant and a long serving member of the Library staff has also been issued with notice of dismissal.

Mike Jennings, General Secretary of IFUT, said that “last year, IFUT members, with considerable reluctance, voted to endorse the Croke Park Agreement following detailed clarifications from the Department of Education as to how its provisions would apply in the university sector.

“In return for agreeing to substantial extra productivity and input, we were guaranteed no job losses and no further pay cuts on top of the substantial reductions already suffered by staff. The authorities in TCD have, in spectacular fashion, broken this agreement. No party to an agreement could be expected to continue to honour it when the other party so blatantly welshes on their commitments.

“This dispute will, at IFUT’s request, now be investigated by the Labour Court in March. Until then, IFUT is putting its participation in Croke Park on hold”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said that the funding cuts are occurring at a time when the number of people seeking to attend Higher Education is the highest in the history of the state and will exacerbate the trend towards forced emigration of a generation of our young people.

“Higher Education must be developed to fulfil its potential as a contributor to our society and economy and not subject to automatic cuts in Budgetary considerations,” Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

In a recent Determination, the Labour Court upheld a Rights Commissioner Decision that UCC should pay an IFUT member the amount of redundancy payment claimed by IFUT, statutory redundancy plus four weeks. UCC was represented in the Labour Court by one of the most expensive legal firms in Ireland at taxpayers’ expense. IFUT is now advised that, incredibly, UCC has retained this expensive law firm and have embarked upon a very costly appeal to the High Court, allegedly “on a point of law”.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, says the Minister should intervene “to prevent the college squandering more than 20 times the payment due to a former employee on a spurious legal adventure which seems designed purely to defer the payment. This is not a case of IFUT seeking more money from government. Instead it is asking the Department of Education to step in to prevent a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money”.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Documentation on the case, including IFUT’s letter to the Minister, is available here.

“Our members were very wise not to accept the original proposal which was like being asked to buy a pig in a poke. But, by their vote today, they have indicated that the hard work put in by IFUT negotiators at national level has delivered a much less damaging and more tolerable set of proposals”, said Mike Jennings, IFUT General Secretary.

The results announced by IFUT today were as follows: 83.5% voted in favour and 16.5% voted against the clarified deal. There was a 42% turnout.

Mike Jennings said: “IFUT hopes that following this vote the focus will now shift to the massive productivity savings already given quite freely and generously by our members in recent years. The result is that we have a world-class system, which is providing higher education to more students than ever before in Ireland’s history, and it is being provided with drastically reduced resources, including significant pay cuts.”

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Minister Quinn stated, “We have a very talented workforce, but the loss of employment in traditional sectors such as construction, manufacturing and retail has meant that many of these qualified and experienced people are now out of work. At the same time, we know that there are skills shortages in certain areas. By providing focused up-skilling and retraining programmes, such as those offered through Springboard, we can match those vacancies with a newly re-skilled workforce and get people back to work.”

Potential students will apply online though Bluebrick.ie, which is the central clearing system for part time courses. Further information on programmes is also available on Bluebrick.ie.

The HEA Press Release is available here.

Dr FitzGerald was the only Taoiseach in Ireland’s history who was concurrently a full member of a Congress-affiliated trade union. He was always proud of that fact as were, and are, all of his many friends in IFUT.

Dr FitzGerald was the Principal Guest Speaker at the IFUT Annual Delegate Conference in recent years. He also took an active part in the campaign in defence of the principle of academic freedom.

Speaking of Dr FitzGerald, the General Secretary of IFUT, Mike Jennings, said “The amazing thing about Garret was that, despite his monumental status as an Academic and Statesman, he was the easiest person in the world to talk to. Was there ever such a great man who was on first name terms with literally everyone he met? IFUT is proud to say that he was one of our own. He will be sadly missed”.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers extends its deepest sympathy to all of Dr FitzGerald’s family and his many friends.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

“Irish universities and academic staff have consistently delivered above-average outcomes for students, despite diminishing resources. Mr Hennessy now wishes to fix what isn’t broken by imposing new and potentially damaging HR changes on top of ongoing staffing and wage cuts, at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. He should preferably reacquaint himself with the facts on higher education in Ireland before issuing such cavalier and unhelpful comments in future”, Mr Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Up to 4,000 young and gifted Researchers are being placed in constant insecurity and encouraged to think of their jobs as transitory and short-term, with little recognition, poor pay and no thanks or loyalty from their employers, Mr Jennings states.

“The new university policy, which stipulates that all new employment be on a fixed-term or fixed-purpose contract, is a direct challenge to Irish law and to the European Directive and Framework Agreement upon which that law is based.

“It is being introduced by universities, at the behest of the HEA, while these very same institutions call for greater commitment to research, ask our children to pursue careers in this area and issue high-minded but clearly hypocritical pronouncements about the need for a ‘smart economy’”, , Mr Jennings says.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Recent suggestions regarding the public service being ‘not fit for purpose’ do not apply to the universities and their academic staff; instead, levels of productivity are being increased amid income cuts of up to 25%, Dr Hugh Gibbons, President of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), states in an address to be delivered to the organisation’s Annual Conference in Dublin today (Saturday, 16 April).

“Over the last two years, university staff numbers have been cut by six percent. This figure does not include staff who retired early under the Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement (ISER), who cannot be replaced. There is now a drastically reduced number of academic staff in the Universities, most departments are struggling to overcome the reduced level of staff and some departments are near closure.

“While it was traditionally the case that Irish Universities operated at half the cost per student of compared to the UK, over the last two years a combination of public service pay cuts, the pension levy other levies and the recent universal social charge, has resulted in pay cuts in the order of 25%.

“In addition, due to the ban on promotions, many international academics who came to Ireland have begun returning to their home country, depleting resources still further.

“These staffing and wage cuts are occurring at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. Yet the efficiency and quality of the Irish Higher Education sector is acknowledged by the EU in a recent ECOFIN report, which states that, considering their size, Finland, Ireland and Sweden are the countries with more universities pointed out by peers as being excellent”, Dr Gibbons said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Commenting on a report in The Irish Times on 4 March last, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said there is no evidence whatever to support suggestions that the Department of Education has ‘lost patience’ with the Federation. “Rather, it has been IFUT that has expressed unease at the ’slow bicycle race’ nature of the process and it would appear that other vested interests have adopted an approach of ‘getting their retaliation in first’. In addition, IFUT wishes to clarify that it has not expressed criticism of NUIG proposals, as suggested in the article”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.