{"id":655789,"date":"2026-10-15T19:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T19:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655789\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T19:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T19:28:10","slug":"uisce-eireann-pays-performance-related-bonus-to-97-of-staff-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655789\/","title":{"rendered":"Uisce \u00c9ireann pays performance-related bonus to 97% of staff \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 97 per cent of staff at Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a> received a bonus payment last year under its performance-related award scheme, the D\u00e1il Public Accounts Committee<\/a> has been told. <\/p>\n

The water utility said at a hearing on Thursday that 18 personnel did not receive any bonus. The company has more than 3,000 employees.<\/p>\n

The committee was told there was also a cohort of staff who had originally worked for local authorities and who had opted to retain their traditional public service system of annual increments rather than a performance-related award scheme. <\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann chief executive Niall Gleeson said staff who benefited from a performance-related award received about 90 per cent of their potential payments, which were based on both personal and corporate targets being achieved. <\/p>\n

Gleeson was also challenged by Cathy Bennett of Sinn F\u00e9in on his \u20ac118,000 increase in pay to \u20ac391,953. <\/p>\n

Gleeson said he accepted he was well paid. He said pay for chief executives across the commercial State sector had been reviewed by a committee established by the Minister for Public Expenditure. He said subsequently and following consultations between the board of the utility and the Minister for Housing, a new salary level for his post had been agreed. He said any future rises would be based on performance.<\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann chief finance officer Chris McCarthy meanwhile said the bonus system was tried and trusted in the market and drove performance in the organisation. <\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il TD Paul McAuliffe<\/a> said every year Uisce \u00c9ireann faced questions about bonus payments. He said if the utility believed this performance-related payment scheme was more cost effective than the system of annual increments paid across the public service, it should \u201cput the comparative numbers in front of us\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Improving water system to cost \u20ac50bn, Uisce \u00c9ireann tells Oireachtas groupOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Gleeson said Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s performance-related system was fair, cost neutral and a driver of performance. <\/p>\n

The committee chairman, John Brady<\/a> of Sinn F\u00e9in, said there was a focus on the bonus payments in the utility \u2013 which amounted to \u20ac17.9 million for 2025 \u2013 at a time when it faced penalties from its economic regulator for failing to meet some targets, and it had also been prosecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency and Inland Fisheries Ireland.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats TD Aidan Farrelly said Uisce \u00c9ireann had only \u201cvery reluctantly, after \u2018context\u2019\u201d, answered his question about how many staff had received the bonus payment.<\/p>\n

Several members of the committee raised a \u20ac31 million \u201cnegative revenue adjustment\u201d imposed by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities after it determined that Uisce \u00c9ireann had underperformed against targets associated with leakage and with nondomestic billing over a five-year period. The utility argued this was not a fine but a revenue deduction over five years. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018We have to deliver infrastructure at pace\u2019: Uisce \u00c9ireann shifts focus to facilitate housingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Bennett asked McCarthy whether he had received a pay increase. He said he had received a 3 per cent raise. She asked about his salary but he did not reply.<\/p>\n

Gleeson then said while his salary details as chief executive were published, no one else in the utility had their specific pay revealed, although remuneration bands were set out in its annual accounts. <\/p>\n

Gleeson said there was a three-year agreement with unions that provided for a 3 per cent increase in pay. However, payment of the full 3 per cent was also linked to performance.<\/p>\n

Gleeson said Uisce \u00c9ireann had paid \u20ac4,000 for media training for its personnel in advance of appearing at the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday. <\/p>\n

He said staff found it \u201cfairly intimidating\u201d to attend such public hearings. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe receive training to give you the best answers possible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll you have to do is tell us the answers,\u201d Bennett replied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 97 per cent of staff at Uisce \u00c9ireann received a bonus payment last year under its performance-related…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15420,72,55871,11654,61,10914,60,47679,85340,12467,776],"class_list":["post-655789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aidan-farrelly","tag-business","tag-commission-for-regulation-of-utilities-cru","tag-environmental-protection-agency-epa","tag-ie","tag-inland-fisheries-ireland","tag-ireland","tag-john-brady","tag-paul-mcauliffe","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-uisce-eireann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}