University College Dublin made payments of over £2 million to staff which were not covered by university legislation or approved by the Minister for Education, according to a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The university made the payments to staff between 1996 and 1998, mainly for correcting papers, administering exams and directing courses. The matter has been referred to the Committee of Public Accounts for further investigation.
One unnamed academic received more than £50,000 annually during this period. Almost half the payments were made through a subsidiary company which offered UCD commerce courses to students overseas.
Asked to explain why the payments were made, UCD's accounting officer said: "It is a traditional and long-accepted practice for universities to make payments for work over and above normal duties." The officer said the payments were for duties performed by staff outside their normal areas of responsibility. The money, apart from those routed through the subsidiary company, came out of UCD's general budget, which comes in the form of a block grant from the HEA. The UCD officer added that as a result of the C & AG review, future payments would only be made following specific authorisation by its finance committee on an annual basis.
Under the new policy, heads of departments must "certify that the work involved does not constitute normal duties".
The limited company set up by UCD to handle the overseas courses was called Advanced Management Programmes (AMP). This company paid UCD staff directly.
Between 1996 and 1997 it paid £450,692 to 61 staff, with payments ranging £200 to £51,810. Between 1997 and 1998, 72 staff shared £478,240 with payments ranging from £80 to £50,978.
The C & AG includes in his report a review of the company's operations carried out by a firm of accountants. This found that AMP had breached "company law relating to the holding of annual general meetings and company registration requirements".
The accountants said regular board meetings were not held, there was a lack of minutes on staff remuneration and documents generally on payments were "not in accordance with best practice in all cases".
On the AMP payments, the accountants said the lecturers were expected to carry out their duties in relation to AMP "during their time allowed for private consultancy" or "in their own time".
"The payments to lecturers were typically £100 per hour. Course administrators received between £5,000 and £15,000 annually for managing a course," said the accountants.
Some of the AMP courses were run in Dublin while others were held in conjunction with other university institutes, including ones in Spain and Sri Lanka. The C & AG was concerned that "UCD's academic reputation might suffer on foot of its association with some of the ventures".
UCD responded that the company was set up to target a niche, and its legal advice was that AMP and payments made by it were not governed by the provisions of the Universities Act 1997. The university said it regarded the company's operations as "ancillary to the main HEA-funded teaching programmes of the university".