GMIT not concerned by ‘skeletons in closet’

The President of Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) says one could never be fully confident that there aren’t more plagiarism ‘skeletons’ in the college’s closet that have yet to come out.

Michael Carmody, who retires next month, said he was confident however that the independent external investigation, which racked up costs of almost €500,000, ‘got to the bottom of’ a serious incident of plagiarism at the college’s School of Business.

Mr Carmody, in a lengthy interview with Galway City Tribune, confirmed that disciplinary action had been taken against a number of employees arising from the plagiarism report.

He declined to be drawn on the nature of the sanctions, or the identity of those disciplined.

A report into the investigation was presented to Mr Carmody last month and was subsequently discussed at the February meeting of the Governing Body, which lasted far longer than usual.

The incident of plagiarism under investigation relates to a masters student at the School of Business in 2009. It was asked to establish the facts around the allegation that a lecturer facilitated a student, her partner, to cheat in an assignment. The external investigation was also charged with exposing whether the cheating incident was “suppressed, concealed or covered up” by staff.

Asked if he was confident the incident is isolated, and if there are any other historical cases that might come to light, Mr Carmody indicated the college was dealing with another case.

“Well that’d be a very brave statement to make now. What we can say is we are confident of the processes that are in place, which are certainly fit for purpose now,” he said.

“There could be particular issues. That’s possible. We’re dealing with something . . . In terms of historical? I’m confident what we have today is a very good system and process. We are dealing with one other particular issue today that is historical. That has come to light but that is being dealt with and followed through.

“We don’t even know if that’s a problem. But we are dealing with another particular issue . . . but we don’t particularly want to get into that. But in terms of where we are today. I’d never be confident . . . it’d be a very brave person that would say nothing could come to light. I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”

Mr Carmody also addressed the issue of a split in the investigation team of Professor Bairbre Redmond, the deputy registrar for teaching and learning at University College Dublin, and Ed Madden, a barrister and mediator.

Mr Carmody said he is aware of the perception that he might not have liked what was contained in the Madden report, and so he subsequently re-hired Ms Redmond to produce a more favourable report but that was not reality.

“Whatever the perception, I wasn’t worried about what people’s perception was, I wanted to get this thing done. I just wanted the investigation done, and to deal with it. There might be a perception of what might or might not have happened.

“What did happen was I ended up getting a report in Madden’s name, I had queries, he did not deal with them and I was left in that situation. I got legal advice as to how best to proceed, and the advice was get Redmond to complete the report. Regardless of perception that’s actually what happened.” He said the two reports differ only slightly, mostly in style but not substance.

Mr Carmody reiterated GMIT’s commitment to publish both reports, although he indicated that names may have to be redacted. He acknowledged that a decision not to publish would add fuel to the conspiracy theory that there was an attempt of a “cover-up of a possible cover-up”.

“All aspects to do with the investigation are now completed. I suppose, we are limited in what we can say due to the sensitivity of the matter and our obligations under data protection. We would like to provide as much information to you as possible but we are restricted for those reasons and we have to be very careful what we say.

“We will publish everything, in so much as we can publish, in the two reports, because it is in our interest to do so. The alternative is you don’t publish at all – that certainly wouldn’t be ideal . . . looking at the issue of covering up the outcome of a cover-up,” added Mr Carmody.