Problem for ex mayor

Curly Judge

periodictable wrote: »

Good question.

In my opinion, Mr Garvey is typical of the type of politician who feasted at the trough at the taxpayers expense, thereby helping to break the country.
What are needed are people for whom public service means a willingness to offer one's expertise and experience for the betterment of the nation, without self-enrichment.

While Mr Garvey's actions may have been very questionable indeed, the system which entitled him to such largess at the expense of the people cries out for our condemnation also.
The architects of this system should be tarred, and feathered with the contents of their own cushy nests.
Why should my or my neighbors taxes go toward this mans educational aggrandizement?

periodictable

Garvey steps down pending investigation.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1215/1224327873742.html

Talk about brass neck-took him long enough.

periodictable

Now the college wants to investigate who leaked what to the media.....time for whistleblowers protection legislation.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/college-in-plagiarism-row-to-probe-staff-over-media-leaks-29214100.html

pilate 1

periodictable wrote: »

Now the college wants to investigate who leaked what to the media.....time for whistleblowers protection legislation.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/college-in-plagiarism-row-to-probe-staff-over-media-leaks-29214100.html

of course they are entitled to hold an investigation.for whatever reason(right/or wrong) you cant just go running to the media on every percieved wrong.if whoever blew the whistle felt that strongly on the issue i would imagine they wouldnt need the cloak of anoniminity.

Figerty

I'd say they know who it was but won't be able to prove it. Obviously the president in ITT has lost the dressing room with the Academic staff and is now seriously undermind by those with standards.

Appointing a Councillor from Clare to ITT Chairman, who was the allowed to register as a student in the same college he was chairman of the governing body was nuts anyway.

At graduation, the Chair of the Governing body makes keynote address, and then in this case, accepted a degree from the Institute he was chair of.

Flan Garvey should have known better than try to be a student and a master in Tralee at the same time. To see nothing wrong with this was also a poor refelction on standard in ITT.

Lady Chatterton

Mr. Garvey has been cleared of plagiarism but lecturers in ITT still want him to give up his role as college chairman.

LECTURERS at a third-level institute have called on their chairman to step down from his position after he was cleared on appeal of plagiarising his thesis.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/college-chairman-asked-to-quit-over-thesis-row-29258311.html

Figerty

MrsD007 wrote: »

Mr. Garvey has been cleared of plagiarism but lecturers in ITT still want him to give up his role as college chairman.




http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/college-chairman-asked-to-quit-over-thesis-row-29258311.html

He hasn't been cleared of plagerism. He has been cleared of deliberate plagerism. To quote the Clare Champion on may 10th the panel found that unintentional plagerism had occurred. That is plagerism. That means taking credit for someone else's work without giving due credit.

The original finding was that the degree was awarded in an unjustified manner. He appealed and it would appear that he got the outcome changed on a tecnicallity that the rules hadn't not been circulated to the student body. Read the Clare champion article. In other words, he hadn't read the rules becaUse no one put them in front of him. As chairman of the governing body this is a disastrous stance and no wonder the staff want him out.

He is now in the ambarassing position of having to resubmit his thesis with a list of corrections four years later. From an acedimic point of view this is akin to an embarrassing climb down, anyone who ever reads this thesis will see this Corrigenda and know the work is tainted.

How can this man preside over graduations in the institute from now on?

http://www.clarechampion.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14176:six-months-of-torture-over-for-former-mayor&catid=74:general&Itemid=60

periodictable

Garvey is the ultimate Fianna Fail with a neck of brass. His type doesn't do resignation.

PyeContinental

Curly Judge wrote: »

While Mr Garvey's actions may have been very questionable indeed, the system which entitled him to such largess at the expense of the people cries out for our condemnation also.
The architects of this system should be tarred, and feathered with the contents of their own cushy nests.
Why should my or my neighbors taxes go toward this mans educational aggrandizement?

Thanks for the update to this thread, and kudos to Curly Judge for the use of many beautifully descriptive words in the one post, but particularly largesse and aggrandizement :cool:

Curly Judge

PyeContinental wrote: »

Thanks for the update to this thread, and kudos to Curly Judge for the use of many beautifully descriptive words in the one post, but particularly largesse and aggrandizement :cool:

It's my policy never to use a small word where a big one can be fitted!:D

Balagan

periodictable wrote: »

Garvey is the ultimate Fianna Fail with a neck of brass. His type doesn't do resignation.

They don't even do typing!

periodictable

Just listening to him on Clare FM.....sounds like the quintessential gombeen man, from speaking of his entitlements to his "important friends in high places". Talk about wind and piss.

PyeContinental

periodictable wrote: »

Just listening to him on Clare FM.....sounds like the quintessential gombeen man, from speaking of his entitlements to his "important friends in high places". Talk about wind and piss.

Anyone know of a link to a recording of the interview?

breedie

I particularly enjoyed the piece in the Clare Champion where the individual in question is reported as describing this disgrace as a load of "hullabaloo" over "two wrong references and a number of inverted commas missing and that is all that was wrong"

To have completed an education and still not accept that these pesky inverted commas are so your words can be distinguished from those of another individual is enough of a reason to hang your head in shame.

To lose one inverted comma may be regarded as carelessness; to lose "a number" of them looks like something else entirely!

Figerty

breedie wrote: »

I particularly enjoyed the piece in the Clare Champion where the individual in question is reported as describing this disgrace as a load of "hullabaloo" over "two wrong references and a number of inverted commas missing and that is all that was wrong"

To have completed an education and still not accept that these pesky inverted commas are so your words can be distinguished from those of another individual is enough of a reason to hang your head in shame.

To lose one inverted comma may be regarded as carelessness; to lose "a number" of them looks like something else entirely!

What was better was to read one version of events from his head on the left hand side and to read the facts on the right hand side... needless to say the weren't exactly matching..

I suppose you could say in this case taking credit for someone else's work would be normal for most politicians.

breedie

I wonder if I wrote a letter to the paper attributing him with phrases like "I am a complete idiot", "I have the moral fibre of a paper bag", and "please spit at me if you see me on the street" would he finally recognise the importance of inverted commas?

After all, if it's not a problem when they're missing it shouldn't be that much of a problem when they're inserted.

Figerty

I wonder if he was paying the typist per charachter typed? Saved a few bob on quotation marks etc.

I also wonder did he get travelling expenses to attend the inquiry?

RabbleRouser2k

I am pretty critical of that institute, and education, myself, to be quite honest. Similar to others on this board.

The sad thing is that there is very little regulation going on in the Institutes across the country. Universities have someone to report to, and who folks can report them to also, in situtations where people feel they are getting the short end of the stick. In a Uni, if they feel the lecturer is/has issues, they can complain and have it redressed, if they complain in an IT...tough toffee, you are screwed.

There is meant to be software checking to make sure there is no plagiarism, but like all software, it is fallible. Garvey is, allegedly, going to seek legal action over this (A relative told me this, as his wife worked with Garvey before he joined the ITT) but considering how the institute is so 'hush-hush' about certain things, I think they will try and dissuade him over this. I imagine the staff in question, who reported Flann, were angry that this was being swept under the carpet and ignored, while others were being docked marks or called up on the slightest typo or missing reference, they had to leak it to the media.
But considering some of the stuff I personally saw going on there, Garvey is just a drop in the ocean compared to the rubbish that never leaks to the media. (I also imagine that Garvey's political affiliations may have ticked off a few people, as there are quite a number of FG/ Labour supporters in that place. And I say this as someone who detests FF, yet hates political bias.) One lecturer was only suspended from work for two weeks for drug use, another was suspended for absenteeism, drinking on the job, and docking students marks when she disliked them. Both still have their jobs there. We also know that a student and lecturer are not supposed to have an intimage relationship, but sod it, the ITT don't follow those rules. As one lecturer demonstrated. Yet none of the incidents I mentioned ever leaked to the media.
And btw, who the heck is going to mark his new thesis? Not the previous shower I hope.

I have to wonder how damaging this will be to others who have come before, and after him, whilst trying to earn their degrees in that place? Will employers look at them and wonder if they plagiarised their work? I know it happens around the world, and people get away with it, but few of these institutes have a known plagiariser on their staff. (Whether it was deliberate or accidental, it still makes him a plagiariser. It's unfortunate, but that's life.) What other questions will this raise? I know folks who broke their backs when it came to getting their degrees from that place, yet will theirs now be worth naught? What I mean is, will employers look at their CV and immediately dismiss their job application when it gets to that part? I know others who cannot edit a video to save their lives (part of the course training), since they got everyone else to do it for them in the place, but the less said about them the better.

Figerty

It's a funny thing about the law..if Garvey goes the legal route he is just going to expose more facts about the goings on. The whole Inquiry will be played on in public and all the facts will come out about his goings on.

I just found this on a google search. The report is more damning of Garvey that I had thought.

While the external panel was well formed in its make up... who was on the internal panel appeal board????

http://www.irishexaminer.com/text/ireland/cwmhaumhcwcw/


Plagiarism finding

After word-for-word comparisons with texts cited by the complainants, the investigation panel found numerous tracts of Mr Garvey’s thesis were near-verbatim copies of insufficiently acknowledged or misleadingly cited primary or secondary sources.

"There are some very slight variations, mainly of punctuation and paragraphing, between thesis and original, but there is not a single sentence in this sub-section which can be said to be Mr Garvey’s own work," they wrote of more than seven pages in chapter 1."

RabbleRouser2k

Figerty wrote: »

It's a funny thing about the law..if Garvey goes the legal route he is just going to expose more facts about the goings on. The whole Inquiry will be played on in public and all the facts will come out about his goings on.

I just found this on a google search. The report is more damning of Garvey that I had thought.

While the external panel was well formed in its make up... who was on the internal panel appeal board????

http://www.irishexaminer.com/text/ireland/cwmhaumhcwcw/


Plagiarism finding

After word-for-word comparisons with texts cited by the complainants, the investigation panel found numerous tracts of Mr Garvey’s thesis were near-verbatim copies of insufficiently acknowledged or misleadingly cited primary or secondary sources.

"There are some very slight variations, mainly of punctuation and paragraphing, between thesis and original, but there is not a single sentence in this sub-section which can be said to be Mr Garvey’s own work," they wrote of more than seven pages in chapter 1. "

This controversy is not going away, I feel. There will be past and former students wondering if their degree is valid, and there will be employers wondering what else the ITT covered up, and if students can even do what they claim they can do. It could very well lead to retroactive investigations.

I remember having to wait 9 weeks for a resit exam that was meant to turn up in a few days, and which is one of the reasons why I left the place.
They launched a Masters in Creative Media, whilst only having 4 camcorders, which only occassionally work.
There are very few folks out of that place who have fond memories of it, since many I know signed up to FAS courses due to their skills already being out of date, even when they only graduated in June, they were in a FAS course by September because they lacked knowledge in every technical field.
Many who signed up for careers in web development could not do any web programming, because they had not been taught php coding script, which is used pretty much everywhere for web programming.
The crazy thing is that the institute is trying to get University status, but they cannot teach the courses in the prospectus, or the courses are not as advertised.
I have warned folks into going there, a few I knew who did not listen to me eventually dropped out when they saw I was telling the truth.
Much better to enrol in a degree in a respectable place, rather than get screwed over with a degree that's not worth it's weight in salt.

Clareman

I don't know if there's much more to discuss on this thread, if you want to discuss the standard of education at at particular institution I recommend either taking it up directly with them or start a topic in the relevant forum.

Also, as with all topics on legal issues, we can't discuss anything that could influence any court proceedings, please refrain from discussing any potential legal cases.

Thanks

Balagan

He's going.

FLAN GARVEY TO STEP DOWN AS CHAIRMAN OF I.T TRALEE

http://www.clare.fm/news/flan-garvey-step-down-chairman-it-tralee?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

RabbleRouser2k

Poor guy is a scapegoat.

I cannot help but feel that, yes, he may have plagiarised, but if he did so, it was not breaking the rules, or at least the rules he had been given.
So, technically, he did nowt wrong.
I doubt this is the end of it, to be honest. Possibly just the beginning.

I hope there was no other reasons for him stepping down. I don't want to speculate, I just hope there were no other reasons.

Figerty

Sorry RabbleRouser2K, I disagree.

He was found guilty of plagerism. That means he took credit for other peoples work thereby denying them the acknowledgment for their efforts they deserve. In an academic exercise this is a great insult; probably second only to deliberatley misrepresenting other peoples work.
He appealed on a technicality that he hadn't been given the rules to read. As someone completing a masters, (that is a level 9 on a scale of 10), to give the excuse that he hadn't been given the rules is like being caught for speeding but saying I couldn't read the road signs because no one pointed them out.

A masters requires a level of knowledge and insight that demands a professional approach and that includes investigating the requirements that are set out, submission requirement etc.

For someone who sits on disciplinary committees to use the excuse that he had not been given the rules to read is stretching his credibility beyond belief.

He now has the union on his back and they won't back down. The game is over, he just won't admit it.

RabbleRouser2k

Oh he plagiarised, no doubt about it, but what I am saying is that while he can say that 'He never got the rules', and alot of us would raise an eyebrow, in this case, he had the law on his side. There was a barrister on the appeals committee, and he seemed to see that the guy's excuse was airtight. So that the Institute could not call him out for plagiarism reflects far more on them than it does on him.
Your speeding example is a good one, because, if he could argue, legally, that the excuse stood, than he could dodge the ticket. And look at how many TD's were able to get points quashed and erased when they cited many excuses, such as asthma, or an obscured sign.
The Institute messed up, and now the heat is on them, as there are still investigations going on into how they assess the Masters in the Institute.
Also, note that, despite this being 5 years after his submission, the rules are still the same as the time he did his Masters. So how many others, in the years in between, were able to do the same, and say 'I never got the rules'? Yes, common sense says one thing, but the rules say something completely different. And again, he followed the rules. The problem is, they did not give him the right rules.
Note that his resignation was a surprise to many, as all indications were that he was going to do a PHD there. So it cannot be as obvious to others as many on this board.
I say he is a scapegoat because the institute are trying to divert all the attention away from them and onto him, making it look like 'he's gone now, everything is better' when there are still investigations going on there. Will we hear about the results of that investigation? Possibly, more than likely not though. I cannot say that the place sounds like it has sorted out it's issues in the 5 years since.

Figerty

RabbleRouser2k wrote: »

Oh he plagiarised, no doubt about it, but what I am saying is that while he can say that 'He never got the rules', and alot of us would raise an eyebrow, in this case, he had the law on his side. There was a barrister on the appeals committee, and he seemed to see that the guy's excuse was airtight. So that the Institute could not call him out for plagiarism reflects far more on them than it does on him.
Your speeding example is a good one, because, if he could argue, legally, that the excuse stood, than he could dodge the ticket. And look at how many TD's were able to get points quashed and erased when they cited many excuses, such as asthma, or an obscured sign.
The Institute messed up, and now the heat is on them, as there are still investigations going on into how they assess the Masters in the Institute.
Also, note that, despite this being 5 years after his submission, the rules are still the same as the time he did his Masters. So how many others, in the years in between, were able to do the same, and say 'I never got the rules'? Yes, common sense says one thing, but the rules say something completely different. And again, he followed the rules. The problem is, they did not give him the right rules.
Note that his resignation was a surprise to many, as all indications were that he was going to do a PHD there. So it cannot be as obvious to others as many on this board.
I say he is a scapegoat because the institute are trying to divert all the attention away from them and onto him, making it look like 'he's gone now, everything is better' when there are still investigations going on there. Will we hear about the results of that investigation? Possibly, more than likely not though. I cannot say that the place sounds like it has sorted out it's issues in the 5 years since.

You have some good points there and valid. I would differ with on some points. For the Chairman of a governing body to be caught this way really reflects badly on the management of the institute. The fact that the Academic staff had to blow the whistle really reflects badly on the president, senior management and the examiners. The presidents threat to get the whistleblowers may make his position untenable with the staff also. The Quality assurance office will also be under pressure now.

I also disagree with you on the appeals issue. He found a technicality that would most likely have lead to a court case if they had turned down the appeal. This still shows the ineptitude of the system. Its not true to say it was airtight, it was more likely that the 'dog ate my homework' defence couldn't be beaten.

Anyone in the education system knew this was going to end in an embarrassing resignation for Tralee and the Chairman. The Chairman should be a paragon of virtue so it was no surprise that he went before being pushed.

Perhaps announcing it on the day Alan Shatter was in trouble in the Dail and all the media attention there had something to do with the timing?

RabbleRouser2k

Figerty wrote: »

You have some good points there and valid. I would differ with on some points. For the Chairman of a governing body to be caught this way really reflects badly on the management of the institute. The fact that the Academic staff had to blow the whistle really reflects badly on the president, senior management and the examiners. The presidents threat to get the whistleblowers may make his position untenable with the staff also. The Quality assurance office will also be under pressure now.

I also disagree with you on the appeals issue. He found a technicality that would most likely have lead to a court case if they had turned down the appeal. This still shows the ineptitude of the system. Its not true to say it was airtight, it was more likely that the 'dog ate my homework' defence couldn't be beaten.

Anyone in the education system knew this was going to end in an embarrassing resignation for Tralee and the Chairman. The Chairman should be a paragon of virtue so it was no surprise that he went before being pushed.

Perhaps announcing it on the day Alan Shatter was in trouble in the Dail and all the media attention there had something to do with the timing?

I think they did try to dodge media attention, say, country wide, but they could not dodge the media attention county wide, in their own county. The radio, for example, was filled with coverage about this (at least Radio Kerry was).

I find it highly disturbing that the President of the placeis now chasing the 'whistleblowers', never mind that they were doing the jobthat he cannot. The guy serving as president there used to be a 'lecturer' inthe college. Previous presidents were from outside of the college, which sortof gave a fresh set of eyes a chance to change things and make 'improvements'(Again, these could be good or bad). That their current president is from within the college, leaves me rather perturbed and asking questions. He is also from Clare, the previous constituency of Mr Garvey, so it does leave me wondering if he is chasing after the 'whistleblowers' for no other reason than because they ratted on a friend of his. Nepotism is ugly, it needs to be said, and this rings a little of this. Also, Garvey's resignation was reported on RTE News Aertel, but I do not know if it was reported on RTE news itself. So it did not dodge all media attention. I wonder, who it was that went to the media? Was it lecturers? People vying for his job? The cleaners? I don't think that it was out of good will that some people came forward.

I was watching the news this evening, and strangely, ITT is being considered for University status, by merging with CIT. Now, I have to wonder if this is going to be like Bertie Ahern when he tried, in 2002, to get Euro 2008 (Sharing the duties with Scotland). This despite the Bertie Bowl being so far away from construction, it would not be ready for the 2020 World cup, never mind 2008.
There is far too much needed to be changed, and addressed, in order for ITT to be considered for this status. It is still under investigation regarding their Masters program, and it still has numerous issues it needs to address. If they do get Uni status, that would just bring up more questions regarding education in Ireland, and none of them good. Still, it is all down to consideration, and they may not get Uni status as of yet.

periodictable

The whole situation reeks of an Irish solution to an Irish problem-innuendo and shading the truth instead of calling it as it is-FFS to copy word for word two entire chapters of someone's book and "accidentally " forget to cite it is a crock.
As Judge Judy says don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Curly Judge

periodictable wrote: »

The whole situation reeks of an Irish solution to an Irish problem-innuendo and shading the truth instead of calling it as it is-FFS to copy word for word two entire chapters of someone's book and "accidentally " forget to cite it is a crock.
As Judge Judy says don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

The whole incident - and it's handling - is enough to make a bluebottle vomit!

RabbleRouser2k

Trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg.