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Institute spent €185,000 on private jets Passengers included last two university presidents. By Richard Manton
It has emerged that the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at NUIG spent €185,000 hiring private jets to fly from Galway to Innsbruck, Austria. The expenditure took place between June and November 2004 and was not approved by the university.
funder of DERI, and the university found that the spending was “inappropriate” and, according to a statement from DERI, NUIG “agreed to refund the cost of the inappropriate travel expenditure from non-exchequer income”. NUIG repaid the SFI to the tune of €170,000.
The scandal was uncovered by the Irish Independent by obtaining flight invoices and other evidence using the Freedom of Information Act. An investigation in the newspaper revealed that €154,000 was spent sending up to 50 DERI staff to conferences at a luxury resort in Crete and that €1.3m was spent on foreign travel in three years.
The directors of DERI – Dieter Fensel and Christoph Bussler left NUIG soon after the investigation into the travel expenditure. According to the DERI statement, there was a “restructuring of the directorship of the Institute and the introduction of new management and tighter controls on spending”.
An investigation by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the main
This issue is the subject of a featured article on page 6.
Education to face €500m in cuts By Grainne Coyne Last week it was announced that the Government are considering raising the registration fees and cutting the grant as part of €500 million worth of cuts in the Budget. Emmet Connolly, SU Education officer told Sin: “We’ve been told by government TDs that the amount that is in play for budget cuts in December is about €1.8billion from the €8.2 billion education budget.” Despite some aspects of education being immune under the Croke Park agreement, it is still at risk under the new budget.
According to Connolly, the government plans “up to €500million in cuts” in education. This would amount to a cut of 28%. These cuts would “have severe and immediate effects on students here in NUIG and across the third-level sector,” these cuts would affect investments in technology and infrastructure, Student Assistance fund, facilities and “more than likely, a cut in the student maintenance grant, which over a third of NUI Galway students are dependent on and which was hit for 5% in last year’s budget.” continued on page 2
Prospectus Literature A glossy sales pitch
National March 3rd November
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