Irish Water pays €5m a year in performance-related pay to staff

Irish Water has paid out more than €10.1 million in performance-related pay to its staff over the past two years.

Bonus pay to workers at the utility was up more than 4 per cent last year when they paid out €5.176 million to 789 eligible employees. In 2020, 765 staff shared €4.96 million, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Irish Water declined to provide a list of the top 20 performance-related payments over the two years, saying this could identify individual employees. However, they said the average performance-related award among the top 20 staff during 2021 had worked out at €19,171 per person.

That was slightly lower than the figure in 2020 when the 20 staff in receipt of the highest bonuses shared €385,460, or €19,273 each.

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Irish Water said the group’s managing director was not eligible for such a bonus and was not included in the figures released.

Company targets

The water utility said all the performance-related pay was fully taxable and did not count for calculation of pensions when staff retired. They said it was directly linked to “rigorously assessed performance” against pre-agreed individual team and company targets.

A full detailed midyear review was carried out for each employee with another year-end review before a “final rating” was decided.

Irish Water kept overtime costs to the bare minimum over the past two years with just €116,000 paid out to a small number of staff for working out-of-hours. Last year, 22 employees shared €52,655 in overtime while, in 2020, costs were €64,089 paid to 34 separate staff.

According to the figures, the average payment for the top 20 overtime earners in 2021 was €2,629, down from €3,095 in 2020.

Overtime is paid during the week at a rate of 1½ times pay between normal finishing hour to midnight, and at double time in the early hours of the morning. Double time is also paid for all work carried out on Sundays and bank holidays, they said.

“The pay model adopted by Irish Water is consistent with the direction of similar commercial semi-State organisations,” a spokesman said.

“It meets the utility’s criteria to have a pay model that was fully compatible with Irish Water’s desire to promote a high-performance culture while controlling costs to create a sustainable business,” he said.

“It is also a key element in Irish Water’s ability to retain and attract staff now and into the future to ensure the utility continues to provide essential public water services.”