{"id":567341,"date":"2026-07-25T09:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567341\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:25:07","slug":"university-of-limerick-ordered-emergency-audit-after-student-life-sought-levy-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567341\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Limerick ordered emergency audit after Student Life sought levy extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The  <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/business\/companies\/arid-41881282.html\">University of Limerick<\/a> (UL) commissioned an emergency investigation of the finances of its student union after UL Student Life sought to extend a mandatory levy paid by students.<\/p>\n<p>UL Student Life formerly operated as the University of Limerick Students\u2019 Union (ULSU) but rebranded in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It is a separately incorporated company to the university, but is given annual funding through an allocation from student fees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In April 2025, UL Student Life asked the university if the student levy, collected to fund a new \u20ac34m student centre, could be extended by six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The total projected windfall of the extension was just under \u20ac500,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The levy is used to cover the construction costs of the new student centre, which opened last October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">When the UL Student Life executive brought the extension request to the university\u2019s governing authority, an &#8220;audit of policies and procedures\u201d was actioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A heavily-redacted report noted that at the end of 2024, Student Life\u2019s main company, responsible for its day-to-day operations, was running a deficit of \u20ac302,954.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In 2021, Student Life ran a surplus of \u20ac312,287, which had flipped to a deficit of \u20ac652,595 by the end of 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Its salary expenses for 2025 were roughly \u20ac830,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The most recent financial statements for the UL Students Union Company show the University provided it with a \u20ac300,000 loan, to be paid back over a five-year term.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The internal audit recommendations included:<\/p>\n<p>                Strengthening and embedding robust financial, operational, and governance controls at UL Student Life;<br \/>\n                That UL strengthen its own reporting processes for reviews of Student Life\u2019s finances;<br \/>\n                That Student Life\u2019s president and deputy president \u201creceive additional induction training on their role\u201d with regard to the reporting of issues affecting the union to the governing authority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A spokesperson for UL said: \u201cUL is working closely with UL Student Life to strengthen financial controls and governance, with an oversight manager appointed to support that process.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A Student Life spokesperson said that the extension of the student levy would not have increased the amount paid by students and that the union has \u201cimplemented over 50%\u201d of the recommendations made by the internal audit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Limerick (UL) commissioned an emergency investigation of the finances of its student union after UL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,6999,43,1907,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-567341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-munster","tag-news","tag-regional","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}