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Two executives from a subsidiary of the University of Limerick have been added to the state-funded pension scheme at a cost of more than 1.2 million euros although they are not employees of the 'university.
The finding is contained in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the compensation treatment of certain UL executives and the Institute of Technology Sligo.
The report indicates that UL's defined benefit pension plan was about to close at the end of 2012.
However, the two executives employed by a subsidiary company – Plbadey Campus Center, which supported the developed universities – were added to the program just weeks before it closed.
They had participated in a defined contribution plan related to the company before the change
No documentation
Although the explanations provided by the university were that the two leaders had been promised pension benefits equivalent to the employees recruited at the college, there was no documentation on this subject.
The report notes that subsidiary companies generally provide for employees to benefit from defined contribution pension rights.
The supplementary pension benefits received by the two executives were actuarially valued at more than 1.2 million euros.
The report also examined two termination contracts entered into by UL in 2012 and the subject of a previous report by C & AG.
She concluded that the university "misconstrued the circumstances surrounding the severance pay" by failing to disclose that she had entered into three-year consulting contracts with both directors at the same time that the dismissal had been concluded.
The combination of severance pay and consulting services put in place resulted in an estimated additional cost of € 310,000 for UL.
Sanction
The report also finds that the Sligo Institute of Technology paid a former employee $ 200,000 in severance pay, five times more than the sanction provided by the Department of Education.
She found that approximately € 100,000 had been wrongly clbadified as "sabbatical leave".
IT Sligo has attempted to categorize it as "a level below the levels of transparency expected of public bodies".
The report also examines the practice of awarding "additional professional years" for retirement purposes.
These provisions are intended to compensate for the inability of some members of the professional or technical staff to benefit from a full pension based on 40 years of service and the mandatory retirement age.
For historical reasons, five of the seven state universities have had these additional years allocated on a case-by-case basis by the Department of Education and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Until end of April 2018, DCU and UL used their own separate frameworks for the award of additional professional years.
generous
An badysis of awards awarded in these two universities between 2012 and 2016 revealed that UL was giving its employees more generously than DCU.
UL has also awarded additional years to administrative and academic staff, while the DCU has limited its attributions to academic staff.
UL allocated a total of 324 additional years between 2012 and 2016, which cost the actuary's estimate of 1.27 million euros, estimated by an actuarial calculation, by increasing the amount of lump sums paid to retired employees.
In addition, a permanent annual cost for the Ministry of Finance estimated at € 400,000 per year will be badociated with the payment of an increased annual pension to these retirees.
The success rate of these applications at UL was 89%.
DCU, by contast, has allocated a total of about 90 additional years over the same period.
The success rate of applications at Dublin City University for the same period was 52%.
Since then, the Higher Education Authority has written to both universities to let them know that all applications for professional bursaries will now be approved by the Ministry of Education.
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