The college was founded in 2004 by Shane Ormsby who was its director and principal shareholder. Originally called the Institute of Business and Technology, its first campus was on Forster Way in the Swords area of north Dublin. In 2006, it received programme validation from the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. By 2011, it was offering the Certificate in Business, Higher Certificate in Business, Bachelor of Business, and Bachelor of Business. In addition to those HETAC validated programmes, it also offered an MBA validated by the University of WalesTrinity Saint David and various accountancy, business, and technology training programmes which at the time were approved by ATI, ACCA, ICS and ICM. The College had changed its name from the Institute of Business and Technology to IBAT College Swords in July 2009. It was changed again in July 2011 to its present name, IBAT College Dublin. The 2011 name change reflected IBAT's move to a new purpose-built main campus in the center of Dublin at Temple Bar. In 2014 the college entered into an agreement with Global University Systems which involved GUS assisting IBAT with student recruitment and marketing. The GUS subsidiary Interactive would also digitise the learning materials for the college's ACCA accountancy courses. At that time Ormsby said that there had been no discussions about the company taking a financial stake in his business. From the outset, the college has catered mainly to students from outside Ireland, the majority of whom are also from outside the European Economic Area. Concerns about the college's acceptance of students without the requisite level of English for higher education study, poor student progression and retention rates, and lax admissions procedures and record-keeping led to a review by Quality and Qualifications Ireland which was completed in January 2017. At the conclusion of the review, validation was removed from all of the college's HETAC business programmes. Despite the withdrawal of accreditation for its HETAC business courses, IBAT was still allowed to recruit non-EU students on visas for its English-language courses. Its MBA validated by the University of Wales remained unaffected. In November 2016, as the QQI review was taking place, IBAT Dublin was sold to Global University Systems. Shane Ormsby remained the college's director after the takeover. Following re-engagement with QQI in 2018, the college received approval to run a Bachelor of Arts in Business in 2019.
Academic programmes
As of 2019, IBAT Dublin offers a full- or part-time Bachelor of Arts degree in business and a part-time MBA. In addition to the degree programmes, IBAT offers English-language courses and its own short courses in various subjects related to business and technology.
