Is there a fly on the wall at NUI Galway?

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column with Dara Bradley

Is there a mole at NUI Galway, leaking information to media?

Minutes of Governing Body meetings would suggest members of An tÚdarás fear there might be.

At the Governing Body’s October 2017 meeting, members discussed the senior lecturers’ promotions scheme; a sensitive topic, given claims of gender discrimination in previous rounds.

They were told that documents relating to the round would be circulated but “would have to be returned and accounted for at the end of the meeting for confidentiality reasons”.

An Rúnaí Gearóid Ó Conluain, “also requested that members put their mobile phones away for the duration of the meeting due to recent unfortunate history regarding confidentiality breaches”. One wonders what these might have been.

It’s not the first occasion leaks have been raised at the Governing Body meeting, according to the minutes released to us under Freedom of Information (FOI).

At the September meeting, which ratified the new President Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, “some members bemoaned the fact that the identity of the preferred candidate was widely known before the Údarás meeting and decried the obvious breach in confidentiality that gave rise to this unfortunate situation”.

An Cathaoirleach Justice Catherine McGuinness replied that “maintaining confidentiality in a university environment could be challenging at the best of times and that Galway could be a small city in terms of friendship and family ties”.

Earlier in 2017, at the June meeting, one member, “referred to difficulties in maintaining confidentiality at Údarás and other meetings on high profile issues of interest to the media and suggested that perhaps a member of the Director of Communication’s staff should be in attendance at such meetings, in order to be in a position subsequently to respond rapidly to leaks and attendant media queries”. It all evokes the phrase, ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you’.

NUIG prez salary just shy of €200k

The President of NUIG has the highest salary of any third level institute in the country . . .

For more Bradley Bytes see this week’s Galway City Tribune