Call for Gardaí to investigate plagiarism at city college
Gardaí should be called in to Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) in order to get to the bottom of the whole plagiarism affair that has shrouded the college, a Dáil Deputy has suggested.
Fianna Fáil Galway East TD, Colm Keaveney, said GMIT has serious questions to answer regarding an external investigation into cheating and the possible cover up of the incident by staff.
Deputy Keaveney said he is shocked by revelations that the independent investigators did not receive full co-operation from senior staff members during the investigation.
The probe, which has cost over €400,000, lasted 30 months, and a report, which is with GMIT President Michael Carmody, has yet to be published.
On Friday, The Galway City Tribune published extracts of the report, which details how the investigators were unhappy with the level of cooperation received by staff at the institute.
The investigation was carried out by Professor Bairbre Redmond of UCD and Mr Ed Madden of NUI Maynooth.
The investigation team alleges that “not all relevant correspondence and information relevant to the investigation has been disclosed” to them by GMIT. The team also claims that the investigation was “unnecessarily prolonged” because relevant files were not made available when they started the investigation in Spring 2011.
Extracts of the report of the investigation into plagiarism and possible cover-up reveal that one senior staff member declined to participate as a witness.
The investigators allege that another senior staff member’s evidence was “at times contradictory, evasive and lacking in candour”.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.