Heating and electricity bill up €500k in Government department despite remote working

Department of Social Protection secretary general John McKeon. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

A €500,000 increase in a Government department’s spending on heating and electricity, while its staff were working remotely, was because all office-based computers were left powered on.

The head of the Department of Social Protection (DSP) has said that “for security and other reasons” a remote-working protocol was used during the first year of the pandemic “which required desktop PCs to be maintained in a powered-on position”.