Sinn Féin EU candidate for Ireland South, Liadh Ní Riada, has said that the news that 29 staff at Irish Water are earning over €100,000, with further opportunities for bonuses, "smacks of a Celtic Tiger type culture".

Ní Riada said: "I think most ordinary people will hear these figures and find them gratuitous. It is ridiculous that the people at top of an organisation, established primarily to impose water charges on hard-press families, are on such salaries and bonuses.

"It smacks of a Celtic Tiger type culture around remuneration.

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"The government must take responsibility for this. Fine Gael and Labour govern just like Fianna Fáil before them. They endeavour at every turn to put the great blue sea between themselves and the decisions they make.

"Minister Hogan said it is not his responsibility to 'micro-manage' Irish Water. However, this organisation has sucked significant finance out of the public purse in order to meet what are called establishment costs.

"Let's be clear. Irish water has received €600 million from the Motor Tax Fund, €240 million from budget 2014 and €400 from the local property tax fund.

"It also received €450 million from the National Pension Reserve Fund to install meters.

"It is worrying that the government is quite happy to take responsibility for handing money to Irish Water but wants nothing to do with how it uses that money.

"Now we have to absorb the news that consultants and top end executives are profiting from the Irish Water project while ordinary families continue to struggle."

(CD/JP)