College presidents reject academic freedom claims
“The seven university presidents have disputed claims by a group of prominent scholars that the Croke Park agreement threatens academic freedom …” (more)
[Seán Flynn, Irish Times, 5 February]
[The full statement is available on the IUA site]
Ninth Level Ireland 
5 February 2011 at 8:53 am
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5 February 2011 at 12:29 pm
The IUA must recognize that the concept of tenure has already been adjudicated upon, in part by the Irish Courts when the High Court addressed the meaning of the word “tenure” as used in s. 25(6) of the University’s Act, 1997.
The Court stated that tenure as used in the Act must go further than a mere specification of the terms of employment and to the duration of that employment. A university already has (under subs. (3)) an entitlement to fix the terms and conditions of all employees (including officers). If the obligation to provide for tenure merely meant an obligation to provide for the terms and conditions of employment so far as the length of that employment was concerned, then it would be a redundant obligation as that obligation is already covered by subs. (3). Therefore, the Oireachtas must have used the term “tenure” to mean something more than simply delineating terms and conditions as to the length of employment.
As such, the IUA statement on tenure flies in the face of the Court’s adjudication on tenure by simply stating that it should refer to the duration of a contract of employment and be consistent with the established corpus of employment law.
What is now required is further judicial review to seek final clarification on this matter. Whether individual academics and/or the wider academic association/trade union representative bodies in Ireland seeks this clarification remains to be seen.
11 February 2011 at 11:36 pm
I quote;
“Some have suggested that this is to have the effect of physically shackling academics to the university and banning remote working etc. We want to stress that this is categorically not the case. ”
That is a blatant and outright lie. DCU contracts were unilaterally changed by management in 1995 to specify a”place of work” at the university.
Incidentally, these new unagreed contracts also got rid of academic freedom and tenure, previously separate paragraphs.
The punchline is that they were included in a new “comprehensive agreement” with SIPTU, the closed-shop union, who were never even consulted.
While I agree with Paul about judicial review, the first step is surely stamping out the flagrant illegalities.
finally, I note that this site liberally relays Ferdie’s garbage, rather than other and frankly more veridical sources.