Public service - €400,000 to do nothing for five years

IT is the kind of story that anyone running a business or worrying about job security and who suffers from a dicky heart should avoid.

Apart at all from the unfortunate difficulties faced by the individual involved, it epitomises what so many perceive as the public sector’s absolute recklessness with taxpayers’ funds.

The equality tribunal heard earlier this year, though details were only published yesterday, that a senior Department of Defence civil servant earning more than €80,000 a year was left with nothing to do for five years after he complained of bullying by his supervisor.

In any man’s language that’s €400,000, plus pension obligations accrued during that period, to read the horoscopes. The equality tribunal ruled in the individual’s favour and awarded him €40,000 so the five years of idleness will cost the thick end of half-a-million euro. Though the department has signalled its intention to appeal the ruling it is utterly unimaginable that such an expensive employee should be idle for even five weeks much less five months in a private sector business hoping to survive until Christmas.

The public service is indeed a different place.