State workers paid €1.8m for remaining idle

A GROUP of former milk board employees, who remained work idle, were paid nearly €2 million by the Department of Agriculture over a seven-year period, it emerged yesterday.

The workers lost their jobs when the Dublin and Cork Milk Boards were sold to the private sector in 1992 and were promised they would be re-allocated to jobs in the public sector.

The Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts, which scrutinises public spending, found some were not redeployed for up to seven years.