The Leader Interview..with Donal Dineen, dean of the Kemmy Business School
THERE are times to look forward with optimism, to speculate and dream, to heap coal on the fire of the economy and watch it drive the country forward, but now is not one of them.
According to Professor Donal Dineen, the Dean of the Kemmy Business School: "We need to hold steady in the face of this adversity. I don't think there is any great hope over the next 12 months for the national economy or the Limerick economy. I just think we need to try and cope with the negative developments."
With a sly reference to politicians, Prof Dineen added: "To a certain extent, damage limitation would be the way. Nobody has the magic formula, and I think when politicians give the answer that 'there are alternatives', I don't think that is being realistic."
For the last 40 years, Prof Dineen has been at the centre of business in Limerick, educating the entrepreneurs of the future at the impressive Kemmy Business School.
A true UL stalwart - having joined the college in 1973 when it opened as the National Institute of Higher Education (NIHE) - Prof Dineen has held a variety of lecturing roles within the business department.
It was in 2002 he was appointed as the Dean of the school - and when Prof Don Barry took over as UL's head, he took on a new role of 'Executive Dean', overseeing a multi-million euro transformation of the facility which has seen brand new facilities added to the Kemmy Business School including an authentic 'trading floor' to give students experience of real-life stock trading.
"We would have a good reputation for being innovative and trying new things. We got €5m from a local philanthropist about 2003, and we turned that into this very fine building with a number of specialist laboratories, trading floors, experimental economics laboratories, human resource laboratories," he states proudly.
From its initial base of just 30 students, UL's business department has grown to accommodate more than 1,500 budding business undergraduates - and 500 postgraduates.
Under Prof Dineen's stewardship, the college now offers literally hundreds of course combinations, from international entrepreneurship to a brand new course which is being offered online, entitled Bachelors Business Studies by Flexible Learning - something which the Irish Rugby Players Union Association has shown an interest in marketing.
"Your career as a rugby professional might last only a certain amount of years. But within that time, if you can gain a business qualification so at the end of your playing career, you have another career backed up by a strong qualification," he explained.
"We found people were no longer interested in spending three nights a week to get a business degree. So we developed this flexible learning programme to do over a four year period."
And so harnessing the latest technology, including delivering podcasts of lectures, this course will kick off in September.
But for the current crop of business graduates, the future looks a little bleak - something I was keen to take up with Prof Dineen when I met in his study, on the third floor, overlooking a fine fountain.
He sighs: "There's no doubt about it, they are going to find it more difficult this year than the previous years. We did a survey recently (of our recent graduates]. A quarter had job offers, a quarter were considering further study, a quarter were considering to just go abroad and take the so-called gap year, and the other quarter did not know what they were going to do.
"While we offer a business degree, it is pretty broadly based and you can use it for many things. A student coming onto our programme now might be making a very astute decision because they won't graduate for four years. By all measures, the recession will be bottoming out in 2010/11. The problem with four years ago, students could not have predicted that in four years, we would have real problems. A broadly based business degree, where you have a good range of accounting, human resources, marketing, risk management and insurance skills can lead to anything."
Indeed, one of the Kemmy Business School's recent graduates, Nika Gilauri was earlier this year, named as the Prime Minister of the Eastern European country of Georgia.
Proudly recalling his student, Prof Dineen laughed: "We didn't know about it until he became Prime Minister! I was quite stunned actually. When we looked it up on the web, we also found out he had been Minister for Finance."
Another high-profile graduate of the Kemmy Business School is Gene Murtagh, who at the age of 35, became the youngest CEO of a plc, building firm Kingspan.
Understandably, Prof Dineen - who was born in Clonakilty - is proud of his alumni: "Our role is to give these people a thorough start in life, to show them how the business world operates, to help their personal development and their teamworking skills. When someone like this goes out and succeeds, we are just immensely pleased."
In 2006, Prof Dineen stated in an article that less than five per cent of business graduates left Ireland: but this was when the Celtic Tiger, although starting to show signs of waning, was alive.
He said: "Going back to the 1980s, about a quarter of our business graduates migrated. But this was when they had something to migrate to - it was much easier to get employment elsewhere. Currently, there just does not appear to be the same opportunities. Business graduates are not the kind of people who will hang around."
Dell's decision to cut its manufacturing base here has devastated the region - but he actually is more surprised the American giant stayed in the region so long.
"I remember predictions in 1995 that Dell would be gone in three years. It's a huge tribute to the quality of the senior management in Dell that it lasted for another 12 years. They saw huge productivity gains over that time, but ultimately it became unsustainable."
Prof Dineen has after all seen it all before. When Ferenka pulled out of Limerick in the late 1970s, he was seconded from his then job as a professor of economics to take part in a study on unemployment and industrial relations.
"What we found, after nine months, was the impact of Ferenka had disappeared completely. That was when the economy itself was doing a lot better. But Ferenka was a different case because it had gone from zero to 1,800 employees in the space of one or two years. The impact was quite short. What we are dealing with (in Dell] is a well educated work force, well skilled and knowledgeable in the ways of working with manufacturing. Operating in a high quality environment."
The high profile task force with Denis Brosnan at the helm is set to publish its first report next month - and while many are expecting miracles from the former Kerry Group boss, Prof Dineen remains pragmatic.
"I'd like to see a series of measures which will give those people working in Dell a bit of hope. I'd like to see some clear, innovative thinking. Obviously some things like 'Start your Own Business' will have to be a part of it, and emphasis on training and retraining. But we are really caught in this situation. Retraining for what? The problem is until there is a pick-up in the economy, it is a case of managing this process."
Prof Dineen describes himself as a "workaholic" - and his CV would back this up.
Among other things, he holds membership of the National Distance Education Council, the Irish Economic Association, while he has also served on various other public bodies by Ministerial appointment.
Most of his evenings are spent reading business journals, or marking students work. When he does enjoy an evening to himself at his home in Blackwater, Co Clare, he enjoys a spot of gardening, with golf and tennis also a passion.
"I just find it very difficult to play a decent number of games," he admits, "If I was to take an evening of relaxation, I like to do a bit of gardening - some of it is compulsory. But I enjoy vegetable gardening. When I get the chance to play golf, I do. We have a golf society here, of which I was the founder captain in 1982. I found at the time that my playing golf was fleeting, so if I set up a golf society, I would get at least four or five games a year, and it has been going well ever since."
The University of Limerick endured negative publicity over its students' raucous rag week celebrations last month, but Prof Dineen was keen to point out a more positive aspect of the event - a student golf tournament which raised over €3,000 for charity.
"There are some fantastic student golfers - they beat the pants off us," he joked, "We held a golf competition up in Castletroy Golf Club. It was arranged by the students, and about 30 people played. It was one of the more positive aspects of the rag week."
One of Prof Dineen's goals for the next few years is to further enhance the international reputation of the Kemmy Business School - and this works both ways. He wants more students from here to take part in Erasmus exchange programmes, and do their co-operative work placement either in Europe or America.
"We need to increase the substance and impact we make at international level. In recent times, there is a good deal of evidence we are making an impact. We are the only university to have our undergraduate businesses courses internationally classified, and I hope over the next few years, we will have many more international links.
"We need to develop our links with leading schools overseas through research, collaboration and attracting further international students both from Europe and outside, to develop links with universities and other business schools where our students will go abroad and study at other universities.
"What we find is a lot of students from Europe want to study here, but our students need to have a greater incentive to go out and take that international experience. I feel there is a tendency for a lot of students to take the easy option and stay at home," says Prof Dineen - who in fact won the EU Commissioner's ERASMUS Prize for Ireland in December 1990 for his hard work during the programme's first three years of operation.
Ultimately, Prof Dineen feels lucky to be the Dean of the Kemmy Business School - and it is something he feels is not always appreciated.
"In Limerick, we have a business school that is probably the best in the country. But it is a world class facility right on the doorstep of the people of Limerick city and county and the region, and perhaps people don't appreciate the quality of what we have here. Maybe its our problem to get the message out," he concluded.
PERSONAL FILE:
Home: Blackwater, Co Clare
Family: Wife Margaret. Children David, Danny, Anne-Marie, Jennifer and Louise have all left home.
Favourite Book: Michael Collins's Intelligence War: The Struggle Between the British and the IRA 1919-1921, by Michael T. Foy. "He was a larger than life character. I was very fascinated about reading about Ireland in that time. I feel I should have read all these things when I was younger."
Favourite Cuisine: Fillet Steak
Favourite Holiday Destination: West Cork
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