MINISTER FOR Education Ruairí Quinn has rejected claims by the provost of TCD that he “berated” university presidents during a recent meeting.
In a weekend interview, Dr Paddy Prendergast recalled a recent meeting between the Minister and college heads where “he basically just berated us”.
The provost said he was “disappointed with the lack of real dialogue. There’s not that sense that I really feel that we are all trying to work together to achieve this common objective.”
Yesterday, Mr Quinn’s spokesperson rejected the claim. She said that while the Minister had criticised the failure of the university presidents to deliver proposals on CAO reform – this was only one element of a long, wide-ranging meeting.
The proposals on CAO reform were first promised by the seven university presidents last September. It is expected the discussion paper will be forwarded to the Minister’s office within a fortnight.
The dispute between Dr Prendergast and Mr Quinn reflects growing tensions between the university heads and the Minister. The heads are critical of what they see as Mr Quinn’s “failure’’ to address the funding crisis facing the universities. In his Sunday Independent interview with TCD lecturer Elaine Byrne, the provost said Trinity’s staff-student ratio has increased from 17:1 to 23:1. There is a danger, he warned, there won’t be adequate funding to employ sufficient lecturers to deliver high-quality higher education that young people deserve in Ireland.
For his part Mr Quinn has condemned the “failure in governance’’ by the universities that resulted in unauthorised payments of more than €8 million to senior staff. He said some college heads are running their own agenda instead of working collaboratively to overhaul the system.
In a surprise move, Dr Prendergast – who has just completed the first of his 10 years in office – has unveiled a new student loan scheme, the first of its kind offered by an Irish university.
In association with Bank of Ireland, TCD Finance aims to assist students and parents in easing the burden of payment arising from the student contribution charge during undergraduate years. The loan will enable parents to spread the cost of university with payments of €100 a month for the duration of study. Mr Quinn has signalled the charge – €2,250 – will increase to €3,000 by 2015.
