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.