Paul Murphy presses IFI on CEO payouts and waterway failures

Thanks a lot, thanks for coming before us. Just to follow up a little on the payments to the former CEO, can I ask was approval sought by IFI from the department for those payments? It wasn't a sanction of such deputy but the department we obviously kept them fully informed of all the, of everything we were arranging with. And did they sign off or indicate approval? Yes, we have submitted material to the CNAG in a set of queries we had earlier. And did you seek to have with the former CEO, obviously you were paying above and beyond the, what legally you were required to pay, did you seek to get an agreement that this would be a kind of full and final settlement that no further money would be sought? Yes we did. And was that, was a document to that effect signed or? No. Okay. We did make a proposal of that nature. You sought it, it was declined but you decided on the basis of advice and so on that you should proceed with the full payout in any case, okay. Just to go back then to the period from 4th of March 2024 to 4th of June 2025 when the former CEO is being paid, as I understand, being paid the entire period mostly at full-time salaries, sometimes at half, some part of that at half-time salary. And what sort of leave was the CEO on? We would, again I'm conscious of the rights you know even under under that protection etc and confidentiality of the employee but I could say in a general way that an employee in this nature can have, and I'm not saying disapplied in this case, I'm not being hopefully pedantic in this, but clearly one can have sick leave, one can have holiday leave, one can have voluntary leave, one can have garden leave and it was a different combinations of those to be to be frank is what we all the time, I suppose it is important to say and I think I can say this without impacting the WRC, we could have gone legal routes, we went into mediation, we could have gone a legal route but chose not to do that because of exposure to other kinds of costs. At all times over this period from the 4th of March 2024 to 4th of June 2025 when he's being paid and at all times somewhere it was registered that he's on a certain type of leave without going into the distinction and there may have been different periods of leave but absolutely yeah okay and Miss Campion I mean you're the finance person in this you're presumably at what stage are you aware that you're you know signing off on the continuing payments of someone on different bases over time you're kept appraised of that as that happens or yes deputy payroll comes through the finance department every fortnight as it is signed off appropriately the board dealt with the CEO I wasn't involved in the dealing with the CEO but the payroll came through as routine instruction and did the payroll tell you that we're paying this person because they're on X sort of leave Y sort of leave Z sort of leave as the time goes on or you're just paying and you know the person isn't working the instructions came from the head of HR who was dealing with the board directly and categorized the leave we were you as the person who signs off on spending money you were aware of what sort of leave the former CEO was on or you weren't it was leave you just were told it was leave I mean that's the thing that the word just leave now and now it's being clarified that there is that there was designated types of leave obviously your average worker in the stage can't be off public or private sector on leave uncategorized for a year and three months and or year and four months and getting paid but you're saying that there was an appropriate categorization I mean one can dispute whether it's accurate or not sure there was there was a certain type of leave at each moment yeah in all cases there were there was in all cases we were we we had several special board meetings on this over the period I think if you look at the accounts in 2024 there were 16 board meetings and to our 14 and 2025 to the 16 and many of them were dealt with the situation concerning the CEO the staff my colleagues here were not included in those in those meetings one reasons I want to present myself here today because they obviously didn't have access to to the decision-making because of confidentiality requirements we were working under but yes in all cases every move we made we made with legal advice and that's recorded in minutes presumably as to the different types of leave and so on okay maybe just to zoom out a bit because I do think in your opening statement you make very important points about the importance of our waterways the decline in the quality points you've made that I agree with entirely about the boeing and I mean it seems to me when you look at the numbers that you have presented and one frontline member of staff for every 315 kilometers of waterway and every 1200 acres of lakes with coastline estuarine and marine responsibilities on top of that I mean I wonder in some ways if some of the cultural issues flow from this is this an organization in terms of resources is set up to fail a bit like the financial regulator at some stage you had three staff sitting on Anglo and Bank of Ireland and sure there was no way they could properly regulate like is that effectively what's what's happening here is that you're so under resource that you cannot protect our waterways it's a really interesting question definitely in one sense the scale of the job you have to look at prioritizing some parts of it you almost have to say well we're not going to look there you have to make very good decisions about technology I think digital technology real-time monitoring this is investments that we need to make in order to be able to do that and I think that's a big part of what we're doing and I think that's a big part of what we're doing and I think it's a big this is investments that we need to make on top of the staffing resource but in terms of being on hand to watch for massive you know what I would always categorize as environmental crime this is not negligence this is criminal negligence it is very difficult to be every place at the same time for sure it's a multiple thing I should have said and I do say my opening statement but I didn't say it in the verbal we've been dealing with the department on new legislation the minister has specifically asked us to talk about fines the maximum fines we impose for environmental crime is 5,000 euro yes this is derisory when it comes to major corporations or when it indeed when it comes to to any player so there is a national debate needed on water now we're not the only people involved I should say we have the local authorities with the EPA as well and increasingly we're working more and more with them and the European Commission has the report into the backwater has said we should have a 3% crime of annual EU turnover of the operator which would be potentially very very substantial into the millions on the operator and why hasn't that happened I mean why are we why do we have such pitiful levels of fines for environmental crimes it's partly historical like a lot of the things in in IFI it's it's I guess there are more I can only say we are really confident that we're moving on this now with the department we're and and I think we will address it and just a final question and I mean again you refer to the the boy in parts of the boy as well as 466 of our rivers have been re-designated as heavily modified water bodies which effectively means that they don't have to reach the same high standards of environmental health as other rivers and lakes does this you know and calling attention it's not not you doing it and but we're calling attention to the climbing standards of our of our rivers in particular the boy and then we're re-designating them in a way to mean they don't have to meet the same standards does this have an impact in terms of the work that you're required to do expected to do no I think on our work on rivers is is so focused on salmon and on the salmonoid species in the boy I again I should have said it in my address but I have it in the in the statement we have a project led by a small team on the Knights Brook River outside trim where people are restoring spawning spawning grounds for by literally important gravel into the river and it is I saw the boy being drained in the 1970s and it was a devastating impact on that river and on the landscape obviously people who have been protected from flooding since wouldn't agree with me on that but I would say that we probably need to really look at joined-up thinking in this regard with for instance I suspect which of the flooding of the boy occurred by the depletion of the bogs to west of trim so are there other ways of retaining a great cistern of water the boy in in the summer is reduced to a trickle in the winter it floods so we need a management system that is very different I'm sorry I don't want to be going on thanks for that mr. Cunt that they burn