The legal route to terminating the ’employment control framework’?
Readers of this blog will by now be well familiar with the Irish ’employment control framework’, the state-imposed mechanism for restricting the capacity of universities to hire and promote staff, even within budget. Following the publication of the new framework, the influential Trinity College Dublin law professor Eoin O’Dell published a compelling legal analysis in his blog pointing to the various flaws in the way in which the framework was adopted, and in the proposed enforcement of it.
Based on this analysis, TCD Provost candidate Colm Kearney has indicated that, if elected to the post, he would move immediately to restrain the implementation of the ECF by seeking a court injunction. I can see the attraction, at least in principle, of this approach, but I would not myself advocate it immediately, because winning any such litigation may prompt a political backlash with further and more restrictive legislation following it. In any case, litigation in Ireland is notoriously costly and often not exactly speedy. I would prefer the continuation of a strong and united front of people across higher education attacking the framework; I believe there is a good chance that this campaign will succeed and that the ECF will be revoked.
Explore posts in the same categories: higher educationTags: 'employment control framework', Colm Kearney, Eoin O'Dell
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
University Blog 
March 23, 2011 at 4:47 am
I think Minister Quinn should be ashamed of himself for not making any comments on this. If he really believes that the NUI is a bigger issue than this then he is not fit to be the Minister for Education and I say that as somebody with a lot of admiration for the key role he played in the good phase of Irish economic development. Also, while I accept Ned Costello’s assertion that the IUA and the Presidents are opposing this behind the scenes, we need to hear something public from them now. This has gone way too far without any public comment from the main leaders in the system.