University teachers unhappy with awards

University lecturers have said they are "deeply dissatisfied" with the level of awards made to them by the benchmarking body.

University lecturers have said they are "deeply dissatisfied" with the level of awards made to them by the benchmarking body.

Their representative group, the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT). said the report had effectively downgraded the whole university sector.

Lecturers and senior lecturers did particularly badly in the benchmarking review, getting just a 3 per cent rise. In contrast lecturing staff at the institutes of technology were awarded increases of more than 10 per cent.

"A major deficiency of the report is its lack of transparency. There is no specific evidence or reasoning to explain its contents," said a statement.

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"To say these shortcomings cannot be dealt with because of confidentiality is nonsense. Of course, there is some detailed information that one could not expect to be released, but that does not vindicate the report in this regard," it added.

The group also claimed the report contained "errors, anomalies and misleading information".

IFUT said it was joining with other unions such as the Irish Nurses' Organisation and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation in calling upon the Minister for Finance to "remedy" the defective nature of the document.

"The credibility of the report is thus doubly damaged, taking account both of what is not in it and what is by the way of false data and inaccurate information," said the IFUT statement.

The organisation's national council meets this Saturday to consider the report.