Richard Boyd Barrett: Why Carlow College's Closure Must Be Reversed

Look, so, this college is the second oldest higher, third level institution in the country and it seems to have a very unique character, emphasis on the humanities and arts and 70% Susie recipients, 40% students with disabilities, 25% mature learners, and so it's quite a unique character. I mean, from what I'm hearing from the staff, and I'd just like to get this clear, is you were labouring under the illusion because of political statements and because of what you were being told by the management of Carlow College that you were on a road to integration with CETU and that the jobs and the ethos of the college would be carried over into CETU and you got reassurances I think from the president as late as 18th of December 2025 to staff saying that's the road you were on and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled from under you and you're told your jobs are gone, the college is gone, and you don't know how this has happened or what's going to, you know, what your future is and what the future of the college is. I mean, one, is that a fair characterisation of the situation and what is your ask to, because it is, public money goes into this and the minister and the department have view of all of this, presumably, are you asking that they pause all of this and go back to what you thought was happening, i.e. the integration of your jobs and the college back into CETU rather than this closure, shocking closure announcement? Absolutely, absolutely that and, you know, there's two things here, there's the forensic analysis of how do we get to this point and the other thing is what are we losing on account of this decision and the forensic analysis clearly puts the college management, CETU and this department in a very poor light. Everything seems to have changed on foot of a report from Mazars in terms of due diligence that was issued to CETU in the spring of 2026 that they have haven't released as far, definitely not to Carlow College, I don't know does the department have it, but that seemed to have changed the whole context of it and nobody knows exactly why and then the original deal that the college went to the department with was, as I was saying earlier, you can have the college for nothing, just continue it as a college and with the staff and the objection that the department has raised to that on the 17th or 18th of June last in the Public Accounts Committee was that we're unlike St. Angeles in that we were carrying a private debt and St. Angeles wasn't and the state can't nationalize a private debt, but they've done that before haven't they, no problem with doing that, but the point is they've known about that problem since 2017 the answer to that problem was integration with CETU, they've funded that whole proposition since 2022 and all of a sudden in 2026, oh well this is a problem, you know, we have the solution to the problem and as well the government has paid six point something million for the college and that would have gone a long way to annihilating the debt if not completely, so why couldn't the integration of CETU, thank you Dr. Heaney, I'm just going to allow one other contributor, what I would say is that yes, I mean we do want to, I suppose, look forward towards integration, what that would look like, but obviously we have the collective issue to deal with currently, but what I would say is that even when the decision was made in relation to the closure for Carlow College and there was a discussion about who would do the teach-out, the two-year teach-out and that was agreed between Carlow College and SETU and Carlow College decided they would do the teach-out for legacy issues, now for us there should have been further consideration in relation to how that would have aided and impacted staff and would it be more beneficial for the students and the staff to do their teach-out through SETU by transfer of undertakings. Thank you Ms. McGraw.