Education cuts deepen as expenses gravy train rolls on<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has called on Minister,
Ruair\u00ed \u00a0Quinn, TD, to explain what measures his Department intends to
introduce to prevent the abuse of expenses at Third Level Institutions.<\/p>\n
Crowe referred to the issue at the yearly Estimates Meeting, when he
asked the Minister if he agreed that the sum 100,000 euros spent on taxi
fares by the Head of Waterford Institute of Technology and who claimed
it offered \u201cValue for money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this week\u2019s meeting of the D\u00e1il\u2019s Education Committee I asked
Minister Quinn how he intends to prevent the type of unjustifiable waste
of money that is emerging in the media about Waterford Institute of
Technology (WTI).<\/p>\n
\u201cDocuments released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed
details of expenses incurred by the WIT President\u2019s office over a seven
year period. These included more than \u20ac100,000 on taxi fares \u2013 mostly
between Dublin and Waterford \u2013 and \u20ac290,000 on hospitality.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdded to these excesses was the sum of \u20ac134,000 which was spent two
years ago on the purchase of fine art along with \u20ac23,000 on the
revamping of an office and boardroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis revamping money was spent on offices that were located in a new,
state of the art, \u20ac24 million tourism and leisure building on the
campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be no justification for such a vast waste of money and the
inquiry by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) into this expenses
\u2018Gravy Train\u2019 must be thoroughly investigated.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor too long an elite within Irish society have used and abused an
expenses gravy train. \u00a0Ordinary hard pressed tax payers are forced to
pick up their tab.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Prof Byrne is right to justify spending over \u20ac100,000 on taxis by
claiming it represented \u201cgood value for money\u201d then there is something
very badly wrong with the current expenses system and governance that
allows it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount spent by WIT must be contrasted with the cuts that are
impacting on key services right across the education sector. People will
be understandably angry that at a time when Special Needs Assistants,
Language support teachers, supports for traveller children, hikes in
school transport costs, increased fees and cuts in student grants, some
well paid academics would appear to enjoy incredible perks and
privileges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt that what has been recently exposed in Waterford
Institute of Technology is only the tip of the iceberg. \u00a0The Minister
needs to introduce measures that ensure the expenses gravy train is
derailed and brought to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Education cuts deepen as expenses gravy train rolls on Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has called on Minister, Ruair\u00ed \u00a0Quinn, TD, to explain what measures his Department intends to introduce to prevent the abuse of expenses at Third Level Institutions. Crowe referred to the issue at the yearly Estimates Meeting, when he asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}