A good day for the University of the South East campaign – no mergers and no Jan O’Sullivan and Tom Boland

John Halligan announced on Facebook that ........ “I have also secured a commitment that the need  to merge with another IT will be taken out of the criteria for Technological University Status”. This is not the full university status through a section 9 review that our campaign is seeking, but it does mean that a huge threat to the future health of WaterfordIT, IT Carlow and the other ITs has been removed.

As a bonus, Jan O'Sullivan is no longer Minister for Education, who together with her predecessor Ruairi Quinn, presided over a dark period of government interventions into the running of WaterfordIT. Going out the door with her is Tom Boland. During Quinn, O’Sullivan and Boland’s time the government entertained a range of bizarre and unsubstantiated allegations at the public accounts committee, and sent two ministerial visitors to WaterfordIT - Quigley to investigate financial irregularities (he found none), and Kelly to pressurise WaterfordIT back into merger talks with IT Carlow.  The Quinn, O’Sullivan and Boland period also saw five WaterfordIT leaders depart before their time was up. These interventions hobbled WaterfordIT management while the government ran a sustained campaign to pressure WATERFORDIT and ITCarlow into a forced merger- a merger with no sensible reason or resources. With WaterfordIT having resisted this pressure and the main aggressors heading off into the wilderness; it is a good day for the  University of the South East campaign.