An Irish financial manager for Ireland’s national railway network claims that he gets paid $128,000 a year to eat lunch and read newspapers all day. Getting paid to essentially do nothing doesn’t sound like something most people would complain about, but for Dermot Alastair Mills, it’s discrimination. Mills claims that after becoming a whistleblower about the company’s accounting in 2014, he was gradually relieved of virtually all of his duties, to the point where he now spends most of his days doing nothing. Yet, he still cashes his paycheck every month. Mills used to be responsible for capital budgets worth around $250,000 from 2000 until the financial collapse in 2008. In 2010, he was promoted, but his career began falling apart in 2013 when he was on sick leave for three months. When he returned, he noticed certain issues with debtors and sent a “good faith” report to the Irish Rail CEO, before finally making a report to the Transport Minister. Since then, his responsibilities with the company have been whittled down to nothing. Mills says he feels isolated and that he’s been excluded from company meetings and training opportunities. Like most countries, there are laws in Ireland to protect whistleblowers from being fired, so Mills' employer seems to have done the next best thing. The unusual case is scheduled for a hearing early next year.
