In May 2018 an internal review was launched after a whistleblower flagged that RGU's newly appointed Vice-Principal for Research, Gordon McConnell, a senior academic and formerly the Head of the Office of the President at DCU, was co-director with Prondzynski in the company holding Prondzynski's family estate (on sale for around 13.5 million euro), and this was not disclosed under the RGU "conflict of interest" policy. Although Prondzynski had a contractual obligation to disclose it, the information had in fact been in the public domain since 2009, and was accessible to anyone by a free search in the Irish register of companies. It was found that this breached the policy but that the appointment was valid, and the non-declaration was a "genuine omission or oversight" and did not warrant substantial action. This finding lead to a letter of resignation from another of the three Vice-Principals, Paul Hagan, who condemned RGU for failing to punish the pair, stating that this damaged the institution ("In the future, other staff may use the defence that they 'forgot' when challenged in investigations and it will be difficult then to sanction them ... having failed to sanction members of the Executive.") He did make it clear that the issue was not personal to the appointed fellow vice-principal, stating "I am firmly of the belief that had this information about this personal conflict been made available at the appropriate time an alternative appointment process would have been instigated, one with more than a single, hand-picked candidate, selected by you. ... The irony is that Gordon may well have been appointed through such an alternative process..." while commenting "This outcome will undoubtedly drive a wedge between the staff and members of the Executive. Our stock is already extremely low."