Irish Water revelation hits Hogan EU bid

Former cabinet minister Phil Hogan has become embroiled in fresh controversy over the massive consultancy fees paid by Irish Water — just as he vies to land the key European commissionership running agriculture policy.

Despite insisting in January that he was not aware of the level of spending on outside experts by Irish Water, a new document unearthed by RTÉ shows he personally signed off on a letter confirming the full spending costs for the utility in October 2013.

After it emerged at the beginning of 2014 that almost half the €180m start-up costs for Irish Water — €86m — went on outside consultants, Mr Hogan said he did not know how much was spent on consultants as he did not “micro-manage” the organisation.