Minister: Bonuses at Irish Water should be scrapped if targets missed

A Minister of State is defending the salary mechanism used to remunerate Irish Water staff.

It follows weekend revelations that workers at Irish Water and its parent company Ervia can earn an extra bonus payment of up to 3% of their salary on top of individual performance-related payments.

Staff members are paid two further layers of bonus payments, if both the company and their individual business unit exceed all their pre-agreed targets in a given year.

Speaking to Kfm, the Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection, Kevin Humphreys, said that if the new mechanism doesn't work, it should go.

"It's a new salary mechanism that's been introduced, first of all, into [sister company] Irish gas, which seemed to have operated successfully.

"So they're bringing their structures over to dealing with Irish Water … if it's not successful, it should go, if it doesn't hit the targets, it should go."