Belfast's Queen's University has been warned that up to a quarter of its staff could lose their jobs because of funding cuts.

The Belfast university has warned severe cuts could see it having to significantly increase fees to cover the shortfall, or face losing hundreds of staff and reducing student services.

Despite being part of the prestigious Russell Group of top universities, which lobbied for and won a top tuition fee rate in England of £9,000, Queen’s said it was not pressing for such a high figure here.

In a briefing paper, it said unless it was able to find cash to make up the shortfall in its budget, the cuts would have “a catastrophic effect” on higher education here.

It said it would have to make a cut of £48m by 2014/2015. Such a loss in finances would mean losing up to 750 of its staff, including 250 academics.

In a ‘worst-case scenario’, departments would have to be shut, student support services hit, and investment in teaching and facilities stopped, it claimed.