No bite taken out of NUIG budget for Big Apple trip

TDs and senators are obliged to declare if third parties have paid for their travel and living accommodation expenses in the Oireachtas annual Register of Interests, if it amounted to more than €650. Enda Kenny, what with him not being Taoiseach anymore, has quite a bit of time on his hands to attend conferences. And last year, according to his declaration of interests, from June to December he attended seven overseas declarable events. One such event was from November 14-18, which was declared by Kenny as an “NUIG Events, New York: NUIG, University Road, Galway”. This would suggest that the Mayo TD’s travel and accommodation for attendance at “NUIG Events” in “New York”, were paid for by “NUIG, University Road, Galway”. The event in question was the Eleventh Annual NUIG Gala Dinner 2017, which was held in the Big Apple. NUIG, however, has said it didn’t pay for Enda to attend. “No expenses were incurred by NUIG in relation to the Gala Dinner held in New York last November,” the college said. “The annual NUIG Gala Dinner in New York is an event managed and wholly-organised by the US Board of Galway University Foundation, an independent body charged with raising funds for NUIG. NUIG does not have any role in the financial organisation or management of the event. “The university supported the Eleventh Annual NUIG Gala Dinner (2017) which raised significant funds for NUIG Sports Scholarships. In the interest of fairness and accurate reporting it should be noted that the event raised substantial funds for Student Sport Scholarships.” Asked specifically about expenses for the guest speaker at the event, NUIG said: “No expenses were incurred on travel and accommodation or otherwise by NUIG for guest speaker Enda Kenny.” Dáil Deputy Catherine Connolly (Ind) would be very interested. She recently raised in the Public Accounts Committee the general issue of the relationship between universities and their foundations. She said: “Who controls what? There’s a huge blurring of boundaries that’s not for scrutiny, which is of extreme concern to me. Because if the university doesn’t control the Foundation, it begs the question does the Foundation control the university, or the direction it is going, or the nature of the buildings? Notwithstanding that very good things can be done by a Foundation, but it has to be done in an open and transparent way and in my view that hasn’t been done.”

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