Academic Tenure Under Threat in Ireland
About 80% of the academic staff in Ireland hold permanent tenured positions. All full time academic staff are officers of the state and tenured in the sense that they can not be fired without a serious cause, such as incompetence or outrageous conduct. In this sense, job security can be considered high (for instance, compared to the UK where only about 55% hold permanent contracts and there is no tenure). The academic staff who are not protected by tenure are primarily those who are in fixed term or temporary employment. In recent years, there has been an increase in the numbers of academics who are employed on non permanent conditions.
The first appointment to an academic position at an Irish university usually is at the level of lecturer. Lecturers need a PhD degree and preferably publications of high quality. Permanent positions of lecturer start with a probationary period of 12 months. At the end of this period, the promotion committee (invariably made up of senior officers of the university together with four elected academic staff representatives) decides on whether to award tenure or extend the probation period. A positive evaluation requires satisfactory performance of lecturing and other duties, evidence of interest in the pursuit of research and scholarship, and contribution and interest in the departmental development. Upon completion of satisfactory probation, the lecturer is granted tenure
Nowadays lectureships are often temporary - one, three or five years. Many new temporary jobs of one year have emerged because of government funding of temporary positions through the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS): they award funding which includes money to pay for replacement lecturers.
In February 2007, the HIGH COURT in Dublin, Ireland adjudicated on a case involving the interpretation of academic tenure and in particular, Article 5.1. of a controversial Statute of one of its seven Universities, Dublin City University (DCU). The DCU Statute 3 declared
“The tenure of officers of the university shall be such tenure as is conferred on each such officer in his or her individual contract with the university”.
As all DCU contracts of employment are legally constructed to allow the University to unilaterally terminate any contract by the giving of three months notice without cause or reason, the outgoing President of the University, Ferdinand Von Prondzynski, (an academic and employment lawyer by training) believed he could overcome the legal requirements of Universities Act, 1997 Section 25 (6) to "provide for academic tenure" by crafting this wording to stand up to legal scrutiny.
In the case, the Court addressed the question of the meaning of the word “tenure” as used in s. 25(6) of the University Act, 1997. The judge declared that the term as used must go further than a mere specification of the terms of employment. As pointed out a university already has (under subs. (3)) an entitlement to fix the terms and conditions of all employees (including officers). If the obligation to provide for tenure merely meant, as argued by DCU, an obligation to provide for the terms and conditions of employment so far as the length of that employment was concerned, then it would be a redundant obligation as that obligation is already covered by subs. (3). He concluded that the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) must have used the term “tenure” to mean something more than simply delineating terms and conditions as to the length of employment.
He was also satisfied that the term “tenure” brings with it an obligation to give a greater degree of permanency to the status of officers of a university, than would be the case in circumstances where, as a matter of contract, such officers could have their contract terminated on three months notice. He was also satisfied that the purported specification of tenure by a University Statute by reference to contracts of employment which, on the facts, provide for termination on three months notice, was an invalid exercise of the undoubted entitlement of the university to specify tenure.
The President of DCU appealed the judgement and the Case is now heading to the Supreme Court in Ireland for a further definitive ruling. The outcome of the Supreme Court hearing will have major implications for academic staff and academic tenure in all Irish universities but a hearing and judgment will take some time.
PS 2 marta 2014 - The above was NOT written by me and its well-crafted prose heralded a new ethos in irish affairs. Forget about all the meetings/posturings of academics and so on - all relevant issues were decided by the courts, which no academic beyond me. Connell Fanning and Paul Cahill (the litigants) attended, and the state knew that it could replace all Irish academics at 3 months' notice. In particular, DCU in Feb 2003 through the business body IBEC threatened a high court injunction to enforce a little-known provision of the 1990 industrial relations act that prohibits strikes for "Single" dismissals. Yes, you've read that right - anyone can be sacked for no reason in ireland and, unless they have the funds for a high court action, have zero chance of getting reinstated no matter how good their case. see my piece "The destruction of academic tenure in Ireland" in the "Ireland in crisis" book (2013, CSP)
What the courts decided was ambiguous, the Cahill vs DCU case apparently ended with a split decision in the Geoghegan judgement of Dec 2009; and then Geoghegan, in the penalty/remedy phase, basically reversed himself and found 100% for Cahill in mar 2010.In my case, I was prevented from taking a high court case, totally illegally, by Kate O'Mahony head of the EAT; she even invented a supreme court precedent for her decision before admitting in public (Jan 2010) that she had fabricated it. I then accused her of corruption, again in public (and in writing) and her judgement on my case is under appeal.While I am ruled to be unfairly dismissed, and repeatedly offered money by DCU which I have refused, a precedent has been set that the Irish unis can use loopholes in the law to intimidate academics and destroy academic freedom with repeated appeals using taxpayers' money.
The behaviour of SIPTU and their DCU rep, Marnie Holborow, was particularly egregious. In mar 2003 they deceived their coerced membership at DCU by telling them they couldn't strike about an illegal disciplinary statute. Legally, they could and wanted to do so by a margin of 150-0. In fact, holborow had been promised an office for SIPTU at DCU and the real story is that Jack O'Connor had unilaterally withdrawn the strike option. Now minister alex white, on being appointed a SIPTU-DCU mediator, did precisely nothing other than taking taxpayers' money to set up a Labor party presence at DCU, refusing to talk even to the academics on SIPTU's section committee here but only to fellow failed labor candidate Chris rowland!
Tenure at that stage was gone, though staff clearly could have saved it; only Cahill's case brought the issues back into focus. Eventually, having ignored the industrial relations aspect and insisting on using the courts, DCU eventually pleaded with SIPTU's remaining members at DCU to vote in a new statute to give it legitimacy. to their credit, they did not so vote. Perhaps the fact that SIPTU allowed illegal and much weaker staff contracts to be issued in 1995 did not help. DCU has been a criminal institution since its birth and should be shut down, with its degrees tranferred to the national uni.
The lessons? First of all, what happens if we remove the state from education altogether, particularly when it decides to close the national uni? the result is http://universityofireland.com/ and it is based in the USA doing very well minus the criminal retards that the Irish state inflicts on us.
Secondly, the Irish state had no problem with a state body acting outside the law for nearly two decades. that indeed is what those of us in the republican movement always said about the Irish state; it is a criminal conspiracy against the Irish people and is quickening its genocidal campaign against us, using the EU and wall St to do so.
Seán Ó Nualláin,
