Civil servant paid €80k to read paper

A SENIOR civil servant earning more than €80,000 a year was left with nothing to do for five years except read the paper and surf the internet after he complained of bullying and harassment by his supervisor.

Tom Barrett’s idleness has cost his employer – the Department of Defence – €40,000, after the Equality Tribunal ruled he had been victimised following a complaint he made in 2003.

Mr Barrett, employed at the grade of assistant principal officer, told the Equality Tribunal he was left in an office by himself at the department’s decentralised premises in Galway with “no meaningful work to do”, and an increasing social and interpersonal isolation from his colleagues.