By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
BUS Éireann has hired an external consultant, who is being paid as much as €2,000 a day – under a contract that was not put out to public tender – to replace its recently departed HR manager.
The company’s long-serving HR executive Joe Kenny left Bus Éireann unexpectedly in December – within days of representing the company at a transport conference in Moscow.
His departure was announced on December 5 – the same day Bus Éireann chairman Aidan Murphy met Transport Minister Shane Ross to brief him on the semi-state company’s financial crisis.
Unions seeking 21% pay rises at Bus Éireann were expecting Mr Kenny to lead Labour Court talks scheduled for December 6.
Instead a new figure – private consultant Brendan McCarthy – attended the pay hearings with Bus Éireann CEO Martin Nolan who informed unions that the company could not engage in pay discussions in isolation from other cost-cutting measures.
The move effectively collapsed the talks and left unions accusing Bus Éireann of thumbing its nose at the Labour Court.
One union participant in the talks said: ‘We got wind that Joe was gone. We got wind there was consultants in and the following day this fellow turned up. We’d never seen him before.’ Mr McCarthy – who had never before been publicly associated with Bus Éireann – is now advising the new CEO on industrial relations strategy at a time when the firm is facing calamitous upheaval.
He is being handsomely paid. Sources within Bus Éireann told the Irish Mail on Sunday that Mr McCarthy – a onetime HR manager at Irish Ferries – was receiving €2,000 a day.
Although the rate is within industry norms for top level HR consultancy services, the figure will anger unions at a time when their members are facing pay cuts, job losses and the possible liquidation of the company. Asked if he was being paid €2,000 a day, Mr McCarthy said: ‘That’s a question I would put you to the company on – I’ll let the company answer it.’
Bus Éireann said ‘all rates and agreements’ were ‘commercially sensitive’ and that Mr McCarthy had been ‘contracted in a shortterm capacity to assist the senior management team to address serious challenges facing the company’.
Asked whether or not the contract had been publicly tendered as required, Bus Éireann said that ‘in particular instances of procurement, a derogation is allowed’ and that Mr McCarthy had been ‘appointed on this basis’.
Mr McCarthy – who owns Stratis Consulting with former IBEC industrial relations director Brendan McGinty – said his role with Bus Éireann was ‘advising on the industrial relations side’ and that he would be ‘part of the Bus Éireann team’ likely to attend any forthcoming discussions with unions.
The team will also include the company’s Manager of Employee Relations appointed in an acting capacity to take over Mr Kenny’s HR role.
Asked why Joe Kenny had left Bus Éireann so suddenly, Mr McCarthy said: ‘That happened before my involvement so I had no input into that.’ Given its financial crisis, some sources within the company expressed disquiet about the costs associated with Mr Kenny’s role with the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) which involved frequent travel which, according to informed sources, is understood to have cost Bus Éireann tens of thousands in recent years.
There is no mention of foreign travel expenses in recent annual accounts filed by Bus Éireann.
The company declined to answer questions about whether or not a severance package or other payout was paid to either Mr Kenny or departing CEO Martin Nolan. But SIPTU’s Willie Noone, said: ‘We’ll be asking those questions.’
