Irish manager gets paid $126,000 to do nothing, sues company

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
4 Dec 2022 10:57

Dermot Alastair Mills, financial manager at the Irish national railway network, reports red flags observed as he handled company accounts only to get sidelined and prevented from conducting his duties.

Dermot Alastair Mills sues employer for the boring job (Wikipedia)

The major functions of a financial manager for Ireland's national railway network, who has now become a whistleblower, are to eat lunch and read the newspaper. He gets paid €121,000 (£105,000; $126,000) a year for this work.

According to the Irish Independent, Dermot Alastair Mills stated at a hearing into his complaint under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 that he had been relinquished of most of his responsibilities at Irish Rail.

“I’d say if I got something that requires me to do work once in a week I’d be thrilled,” Mills said before the Workplace Relations Commission, explaining that he believes that after reporting issues with Irish Rail's accounting in 2014, he was punished for being a whistleblower.

Irish Rail acknowledges that Mills made a protected disclosure, but maintains that he was not punished.

Mills explained his work chronicles: “I buy two newspapers, the Times and the Independent, and a sandwich. I go into my cubicle, I turn on my computer, and I look at emails. There are no emails associated with work, no messages, no communications, no colleague communications."

Furthermore, he said “I sit and I read the newspaper and I eat my sandwich. Then about 10.30 am, if there’s an email which requires an answer, I answer it. If there’s work associated with it, I do that work.”

John Keenan, a former Irish Rail HR director and industrial relations consultant, asked Mills "You're paid €121,000 for doing nothing?"

Yes, Mills argued, noting that he does not use his abilities when I say to do nothing, Mills retorted.

When he claimed to have seen "certain debtor issues," he was overseeing an $8 million loan portfolio. Mills attempted to raise red flags everywhere, according to his statement.

According to Mills, he was "stopped" from taking responsibility for a number of tasks, such as preparing government reports, and was excluded from meetings and training opportunities because he reported his concerns nine years ago, both to the Irish Rail chief and in a protected disclosure to the Transport Minister.