Despite the frankly risible level of payment compliance among households and the deepening debt hole that the doomed utility finds itself in, Irish Water seems to have found the funds to give its hard working staff pay rises backdated to 2014.
The decision comes on foot of a Labour Relations Comission resolution recommending that staff at the much hated company are entitled to increases of between 1.5 and 3%.
These “performance-related” increments will of course be backdated to 2014 and will be passed on up to the end of 2016, though it is widely expected that the company will have ceased to exist long before then.
The backlash against this latest announcement has been loud and clear, with many criticizing yet another controversy to blight Irish Water’s doggedly polemical existence.