TOP STAFF IN Irish Water will be paid over €3 million a year, new figures have revealed.

Figures released to Labour Party TD Kevin Humphreys show that 29 staff at the water body earn over €100,000 and that nearly 100 staff could earn 15 per cent of their salaries in pay-related bonuses.

The figures reveal that there are 310 staff at Irish Water, with more than half, 166, coming from either Bord Gáis or local authorities.

In terms of pay, the majority of staff earn under €70,000, but 127 over that amount.

One member of staff is not entitled to performance related bonuses, but 94 are eligible for either 14 or 15 per cent of their salary.

Environment Minister Phil Hogan says that the jobs were awarded competitively.

“Any employees of Irish Water who came from the local authority sector or from the public service sector immediately prior to taking up a post with Irish Water applied for advertised posts and were recruited through a competitive process,” he said in a response to Humphreys’ question.

Cars

Further to that question, Humphreys asked Hogan for details of staff eligible for car allowances, with the answer revealing that 27 senior managers were given €10,500 a year for using their cars on the job.

At civil service mileage rates, that equates to 38,000 kilometres a year, or 100 trips from Donegal to Cork yearly.

A further nine regional managers are given leased cars “on the basis that they are on-call and may be required to travel twenty four hours a day, seven days a week”.

These cars are all 1.6 litre diesel engines, with one Kia Optima, one Kia Sportage, two VW Passats and five Ford Mondeos being leased.

Credit Cards

Irish Water also confirmed that while no member of staff has a debit or charge card, two credit cards have been issued for business use.

The cards have been issued in the name of the Managing Director John Tierney and the Head of Customer Operations. In 2013, around €10,000 was spent on each card.

Humphreys said he welcomed the answer, but had initially asked for it in November.

“I welcome the publication of this information by parliamentary question. If it had have been provided in November a lot of time could have been saved.

I will be asking some follow up questions, related to who gets what performance related pay and what grades, specifically who gets what perks and why.

Read: Rabbitte: “There is no bonus culture in Bord Gáis – and won’t be in Irish Water”