Joseph O’Gorman, an officer in Trinity’s Central Societies Committee (CSC) and a Trinity Seanad candidate, has given himself and his partner around €1.3 million in the last four years through the tour company he runs on campus, according to the Sunday Times.
O’Gorman, one of 10 candidates for the Seanad in the University of Dublin constituency, is also a former assistant junior dean in Trinity.
Company records, according to the Sunday Times, show O’Gorman and his partner Andrew Nangle – the founders of Authenticity Tours, Trinity’s only official tour company – have paid themselves hundreds of thousands per year in directors’ remuneration, wages and “bonus salary” since 2016.
The company, which operates under the name Trinity Tours, charges €6 for a tour of campus, or €15 for a ticket including admission to the Book of Kells exhibition.
Its annual accounts reportedly show that it paid directors’ remuneration to O’Gorman and Nangle – who own 65 per cent and 35 per cent of the company respectively – of €192,000 in 2015, €230,000 in 2016, €268,000 in 2017 and €302,000 in 2018.
The accounts also show that O’Gorman was paid wages and “bonus salary” of €300,000 over the past three years, including €145,000 in 2018.
In 2017, The University Times reported that the College was cracking down on unofficial campus tours. Only tours led by Authenticity Tours are now allowed on campus.
In response to questions from the Sunday Times about how O’Gorman’s company was chosen as the official tour company, Tom Molloy, Trinity’s director of public affairs and communications, said: “Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we cannot answer your questions at this time.”
In an email to the Sunday Times, O’Gorman wrote that by virtue of his and Nangle’s co-ownership of the company, “it is required that we both be directors of the company. We both also work for the company in its day-to-day business”.
“The company is not a subsidiary of TCD”, O’Gorman said. “Authenticity Tours holds its contract with TCD on the basis of a negotiated agreement. Funds generated by Authenticity Tours during the course of its business are paid over in large part to TCD, and in part retained by the company.”
“The funds remaining with the company are used to defray all costs of business including staffing costs, insurance, banking fees and so forth”, he wrote, adding: “After all such costs are set against company income, as is the case with any company, a meeting of the shareholders must decide what is to be done with any remaining income.”
“It can be, in whole or in part, retained within the company, distributed to shareholders, or given as bonus payments to directors. In virtue of the fact that we are the only shareholders and only directors, such distributed monies come to us however they are distributed.”
On Wednesday, Trinity announced that the Book of Kells exhibition, as well as the Science Gallery and Douglas Hyde, were to close amid measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Four people who study or work in Trinity are now confirmed as having contracted the virus.
Now, campus is closed to all students except residents, with staff allowed access with identity cards. Postgraduate students carrying out essential research can access campus with email permission from their supervisor.
