FORMER president of the University of Limerick (UL) Prof Kerstin Mey received a salary of €215,663 in her final 11 months in the role.
This is revealed in the 2024 annual report for UL which shows the university recorded a surplus of €12.44m last year, after a combined €8.2m impairment cost from controversial property purchases contributed to a loss of €799,000 in 2023.
As UL President since 2020, Prof Mey presided over the controversies from the 2019 purchase of the former Dunnes Stores site in Limerick City and the 2023 purchase of 20 houses for student accommodation in Rhebogue.
UL recorded a €3m impairment on the Dunnes site and a €5.2m impairment for the Rhebogue purchase.
Now, in UL’s 2024 annual report, it records how Prof Mey went on leave from her role as president on March 27, 2024, “and following a mediation process in June 2024, she resigned as president effective 31 August 2024”.
The report states that during the reporting period up to the end of August 2024, her salary was €215,663.
The overdue 2023 annual report separately confirms that Prof Mey was paid €225,559 in 2023.
At a UL appearance before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last October, UL Chancellor Prof Brigid Laffan told members that Prof Mey was being paid €175,000 per year while on sabbatical from her new role as a professor of visual culture at the university.
Prof Laffan said Prof May had lost the confidence of UL’s management after the Rhebogue controversy, and it was in the university’s best interest to come to an arrangement which would enable it to appoint a new president and move on.
The €12.44m 2024 surplus followed revenues increasing by 8 per cent from €364m to €392.5m, as academic fee income increased from €126m to €133m and State grants rose from €80.98m to €94.48m.
UL’s total expenditure increased from €365.67m to €380.67m as staff costs rose from €205.8m to €223.17m.
In her report, Prof Laffan states that UL’s success has “tended to obscure shortcomings in its governance and internal workings which have become increasingly apparent and problematic in recent years”.
Prof Laffan said that a recovery plan has been approved by the Governing Authority and endorsed by the Higher Education Authority, and added that “it is in everyone’s interest that UL is properly run, and I think we are seeing encouraging signs that it will be in the future”.
The report discloses that UL’s spend last year on investigations and mediation under ‘Policies & Procedures – Workplace Dignity & Respect, Grievance and Acceptable Behaviours in the Workplace and Protected Disclosures’ totalled €97,402, including €67,760 spent on investigations.
In his own report, acting UL President Professor Shane Kilcommins said “it is heartening to see the positive financial results for the year, demonstrating that, despite it being a very challenging time for UL – as we work through the fallout from the Rhebogue transaction and the Honan’s Quay acquisition – the University of Limerick financial performance is strong and is prudently managed”.
Prof Kilcommins states that “we want to put the failings of UL’s recent acquisitions behind us, but to do this we will have to implement a programme of organisational transformation, to regain institutional grip and to rebuild trust and confidence in University of Limerick’s ability to manage its own affairs”.
Chief Financial and Performance Officer, John Field, stated that “the financial year 2023-24 shows an overall surplus, driven by strong revenue increase and inflationary pressure on pay and non-pay combined”.
He said the university’s long-term forecasts show a continued healthy liquidity position, with total reserves amounting to €286m.
Last year, UL’s income from its residences rose from €22.2m to €23.4m.
