Coveney focus on Irish Water could see CEO face pressure to step down

EMBATTLED Irish Water boss Michael McNicholas could come under increasing pressure to step down from his job, as part of a major shake-up at the controversial utility, the Irish Mail on Sunday can today reveal.

The 55-year-old has been CEO of Ervia, the parent company that manages Irish Water and the national gas networks firm, for three years.

Housing, Planning and Local Government Minister Simon Coveney has appointed Cork man Tony Keohane chairmandesignate of Ervia’s board.

He will replace Rose Hynes, who resigned from the post last October, and internal sources at the company have pointed to a ‘clean sweep’ remit given by Mr Coveney to the new appointee.

Mr Keohane is a former chairman of Tesco Ireland and his appointment has yet to be ratified by an Oireachtas committee. It is the second time Mr Coveney’s close friend has been appointed to a state board. During Mr Coveney’s tenure as Agriculture Minister, Mr Keohane was appointed to the State food promotions agency An Bord Bia.

An internal source told the MoS last night: ‘Minister Coveney has told Tony Keohane that he wants major changes.

‘Rose Hynes was chairwoman of the Ervia board but she resigned last year, then John Tierney more or less retired in February, so it looks like it could be a clean sweep of the old guard.’

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Mr McNicholas has sold the 440,707 shares he held in

‘A clean sweep of the old guard’

NTR, a company that installs water metres and runs a water treatment plant.

His shareholding in the firm was revealed by the MoS two years ago, and yesterday a spokeswoman said that it had been sold and the proceeds donated to the homeless charity Focus Ireland.

Before taking up his position at Ervia, Mr McNicholas was the boss at NTR, which has a 50% stake in a subsidiary called Celtic Anglian Water. Celtic Anglian Water has contracts worth €2m a year with Irish Water.

When the MoS revealed his stake in NTR, the shares were estimated to be worth as much as €969,555.40.

Mr McNicholas has declined to reveal how much money was donated to charity from the recent sale of the shares.

The spokeswoman said: ‘Michael McNicholas has confirmed he is not leaving Ervia.’ He has four more years to run in his seven-year contract.

Last February the MoS revealed how Irish Water boss John Tierney retired a month earlier than expected – with a taxpayer-funded pension pot worth more than €2m.

Mr Tierney had signed a three-year contract with Irish Water in 2013, having previously worked in nine local authorities over 35 years.

Before taking the Irish Water job, he was the highest-paid local authority manager in Ireland, with a salary of €189,301 at Dublin City Council. With more than 38 years of public service, Mr Tierney was entitled to a one-off payout of at least €267,000 and an annual pension of just over €80,000 if he wanted to cash it in immediately at age 56.

If he opted to preserve his benefits and wait to claim them at the age of 60, he would be entitled to a lump sum of almost €286,000 and an annual pension of more than €95,000.

Annual payments alone – to be paid at €3,653 every two weeks – amount to almost €2m if Mr Tierney’s retirement lasts 20 years, a typical retirement length based on OECD figures. His fortnightly retirement benefit is almost three times more than the €1,230 the Central Statistics Office says half of full-time workers earn every two weeks.

He owned shares worth €969,000