(ORDO NEWS) — The Irish financial manager of Ireland’s national rail network claims he is paid nearly $130,000 a year to eat lunch and read newspapers all day.
Getting paid for essentially doing nothing doesn’t sound like something most people would complain about, but for Irish Rail employee Dermot Alastair Mills, it’s discrimination.
The financial manager claims that after becoming a whistleblower on the company’s accounting in 2014, he was gradually relieved of almost all of his duties and now spends most of his days dining and reading newspapers. Despite all this, he still cashes out his regular salary every month.
“I buy two newspapers, the Times and the Independent, and a sandwich. I go into my office, turn on my computer, check my email.
There are no work-related emails or messages from colleagues,” Mills told the Irish Labor Relations Commission.
“I sit, read the newspaper and eat my sandwich . Then around 10:30 am, if there is an email that needs a response, I answer it. If there is a job involved, I do that job.
I would say that if I got something that requires me to do work once a week, I would be thrilled.”
The financial manager said he was responsible for about $261 million in capital budgets from 2000 until the financial crash in 2007.
He was promoted in 2010, but his career began to unravel in 2013 when he was allegedly coerced into a new role and forced to take three months of sick leave.
Mills claims that when he returned, he noticed “certain problems” with the debtors and sent a “good faith” report to Irish Rail’s CEO in March 2014 before providing a protected disclosure to the Minister for Transport. Since then, his responsibilities at the company have been reduced, as has his budgetary portfolio.
Mills said that when his lawyer said he was being paid “to do nothing,” he was talking about using his skills.
The financial manager added that he feels “isolated and excluded from company meetings and training opportunities.”
The next hearing in the unusual case is scheduled for early next year.
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