“It’s hard to take pleas for more funding for higher education seriously when 50 senior university staff are earning around €10m a year between them. Take the UCC and UCD presidents Drs Michael Murphy and Hugh Brady, for instance, both earning more than a quarter of a million each in pay and expenses. And what about the UCD vice president for research Des Fitzgerald, the country’s top academic earner pulls in over €400,000 in pay, expenses and pension contributions. UCD wisely decided not to pay performance-related bonuses last year. If it had, Prof Fitzgerald would have earned an extra €86,000 – his bonus alone would have been more than most Irish people earn in a year. Had it been paid, it would have caused uproar once the figure was disclosed. Senior Irish academics, in general, earn more than their counterparts in many European universities …” (more)
[John Walshe, Independent, 19 March]