Five Nama staff out of 500 paid performance-related bonuses

Just five staff out of 500 at the National Treasury Management Agency have been paid performance-related bonuses this year in respect of 2011, according to figures provided to the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC).

The aggregate bonuses paid to the staff was €62,610, according to the figures supplied to the committee by NTMA chief executive John Corrigan.

He said while bonuses are built into the contract terms of most NTMA staff, no employee earning €200,000 or more was paid a bonus for last year.

These and other details about the remuneration of staff at the NTMA and the National Asset Management Agency were supplied to the PAC following his appearance before the committee on November 22nd.

The data shows all 15 NTMA staff earning more than €200,000 a year had agreed to the Government’s December 2011 request to waive 15 per cent of salary. In some cases the percentage reduction was lower as none of the salaries was reduced below €200,000.

One staff member, presumably Mr Corrigan, earns between €400,000 and €500,000; another 14 earn between €200,000 and €400,000; and 152 of the 500 staff were earning €100,000 or more.

Mr Corrigan also provided the committee with details of staff pension arrangements at the NTMA and Nama. Staff employed before January 1st, 2010, are members of a pension scheme based on final salary. The NTMA contribution to this scheme is set at 25 per cent.

Those who joined after that date have a scheme based on career average earnings. A 10.5 per cent contribution is paid on behalf of those staff.

At the end of October 2012, 55 staff members were on the final salary scheme and 434 on the career-average scheme. One-eightieth of salary accrues for each year of service.

“Overall, the NTMA contribution to the scheme comprised 12.7 per cent of total salaries,” Mr Corrigan said.

He said the NTMA’s headcount had risen from 169 at the end of 2009 to 500 at the end of October. This reflected recruitment for Nama, the Banking Unit and NewEra.

Nama has 227 staff assigned from the NTMA.