Highly paid mandarin is known to be ‘combative’

ROBERT WATT – Ireland’s highest-paid civil servant – is by his own admission, combative. And if people have a problem with that, he doesn’t care. At least that’s what he told a Dáil Committee earlier this year.

Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway had attempted to pull the secretary-general of the Department of Health up on the ‘combative nature’ of his responses to

‘simple questioning’.

Mr Watt responded that that was his style and if people didn’t like it, he didn’t care.

‘That’s a trait. You love it or you hate it, there’s nothing I can do about it,’ he said.

‘Well I don’t like your style,’ responded the senator.

Brash, arrogant, abrasive and ‘incredibly full of himself’ are just a few of the descriptions of Mr Watt offered by his past and current colleagues.

His street fighter’s streak is not just in evidence in the department’s headquarters on

Baggot Street, in Dublin 2.

As reported in the MoS earlier this year. Mr Watt had a bar room head-to-head with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien in February.

Mr Watt chose afterwork drinks to confront the beleaguered minister over his call for details of a controversial €81,000 pay rise awarded to the secretary general to be published.

According to onlookers, Mr Watt loudly challenged Mr O’Brien after he publicly called for ‘transparency’ about his huge wage hike.

The drama unfolded in O’Reilly’s Pub, on Merrion Row, close to the department HQ.

An eyewitness said Mr O’Brien made a comment to Mr Watt referencing a Government trip he took to Dubai with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.

The source said ‘a loud exchange’ then ‘kicked off’ and he described Mr Watt’s behaviour as ‘inappropriate’, ‘loud’ and ‘irregular’.

That pay rise, on top of a salary of €210,000, left Mr Watt open to potshots from all sides.

He was awarded the massive salary after moving from his position as secretarygeneral of the Department of Public Expenditure in 2021.

Mr Watt was in the public eye again in April when he was accused of ‘breathtaking arrogance’ over his handling of the proposed secondment of the former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College.

The move raised eyebrows when it was revealed the Department of Health under Mr Watt had agreed to fund the move under the same pay and conditions as his existing contract.

Public pressure eventually led to Dr Holohan walking away from the role.