Job cuts raise 'serious questions' over Magee expansion, union warns

A trade union has called on Ulster University to pause plans to shed hundreds of jobs, warning it raises "serious questions" about the expansion of its Londonderry campus.

The university is to make up to 450 staff redundant due to a financial deficit of around £25m.

The SDLP assembly member Sinéad McLaughlin said the university's own projections were that 108 job losses would be at Magee in Derry, 221 at the Belfast campus, 114 at Coleraine and seven in Jordanstown.

The university said it hoped to achieve its target through voluntary redundancies, so it was "impossible" to determine how many staff may apply from each campus until the scheme closes.

The University and College Union (UCU) said the scale of the potential job losses could undermine long-standing ambitions to expand Magee from 6,500 to 10,000 students.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme on Wednesday, Norman Hagan, chair of the UCU's Ulster University branch and who is based at Magee, said the scale of the proposed cuts was "deeply concerning".

"Nobody expected cuts of this significance," he said.

Hagan said he could not see how 108 potential job losses at the Derry campus could not affect efforts to reach the long-stated target of 10,000 students.

He has now called on the university to pause the process, describing the redundancy scheme as "a short-term fix that will create long-term damage to the institution".

"It represents a significant reduction in capacity, particularly here in the north west, where we have been promised growth, not contraction," he said.

He added that uncertainty around who may come forward for voluntary redundancy was already affecting staff across all four campuses.

"The university itself has said it does not know who is going to come forward and this is hanging over every member of staff," Hagan said.

"There is not a chance that 450 people will come forward voluntarily, which means they intend to move to compulsory redundancies after that."

BBC News NI has also approached the Department for the Economy (DfE) for comment.

Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald previously said that the Magee expansion remained an "Executive priority".

Speaking in the Assembly chamber on Tuesday in response to Sinéad McLaughlin, she said the cuts outlined by UU were "a real-world consequence of the Executive not being funded to its level of need".

About 1,500 staff currently work at UU's Belfast campus while almost 800 people are employed at Coleraine.

The Magee campus in Derry has almost 750 staff, while close to 50 staff are currently based at Jordanstown.

The expansion of the university campus in Derry has long been regarded as a catalyst for economic growth in the north west.

In 2024, a taskforce was established to develop and oversee an action plan to expand the campus in Derry.

It has 6,500 students with a target to reach 10,000 by 2032.

Last week, the chair of the Magee taskforce Stephen Kelly said he did not believe job cuts at the university would put the plans in jeopardy.

There are also concerns about the future of the Coleraine campus.

Independent assembly member for East Londonderry Claire Sugden said any job losses there would be another big blow following the closure of the Riverside Theatre, which is situated in the campus.

"Coleraine remains vulnerable, as it always has," Sugden said.

Sugden said that Coleraine may be at greater risk than other sites, as Belfast is the university's flagship campus and can attract more international students.

Coleraine, she said, does not enjoy the level of commitment from the Stormont Executive as the Derry campus does.