Iarnród Éireann paid out over €207,000 to former employee last year

Iarnród Éireann paid out more than €207,000 to a former employee as part of a confidential settlement last year, the company has revealed.

The State-owned rail operator said in an answer to a parliamentary question that an individual, identified only as “person A”, had received €207,850 under what it described as “a court settlement including termination of employment”.

Iarnród Éireann chief executive Jim Meade told Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy in the reply to a parliamentary question that the payment was “subject to confidentiality as per legal mediation agreement”.

A spokesman for the rail company said on Thursday that at no time over recent years had there been any voluntary redundancy or severance arrangements for any member of the senior management team at Iarnród Éireann.

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The child and family agency Tusla said in a separate reply to a parliamentary question that since 2019 it had paid redundancy/severance payments to four members of staff. Tusla said the payments concerned were made in line with public policy and had been approved appropriately.

It said that in 2019 it made a €123,000 severance payment which had been approved by the Department of Children and the Department of Public Expenditure.

Tusla also said there had been a €28,000 “termination settlement” made in the same year.

A separate severance payment of €49,000 was approved in respect of an individual employee in Tusla in 2022 while there was also a statutory redundancy payment of €79,000 made in 2023.

Following on from the controversies over payments to senior executives in RTÉ and the HSE, a number of TDs have submitted parliamentary questions to Government departments about severance or redundancy arrangements in their areas of responsibility.

Full details of exit packages paid to former senior managers in RTÉ, including former head of strategy Rory Coveney and ex-director of finance Richard Collins, are unlikely to be revealed due to confidentiality clauses in their agreements with the broadcaster.

Last month The Irish Times reported that a former top-level HSE executive had departed the organisation with a package of nearly €400,000 “by agreement and redundancy”.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe publicly backed the deal reached between the HSE and former deputy director general Dean Sullivan.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said the amount involved included “a legal settlement payment to address legal and financial risks and a redundancy/severance”.

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