Dublin Airport Authority chief executive Declan Collier is also a public interest director on the board of AIB and a member of its remuneration committee, the Dáil has been told.
Independent TD Shane Ross called on the Taoiseach to “consider the position” of Mr Collier and “stop this culture whereby insiders are rewarding insiders”.
Speaking in the Dail today, Mr Ross said it was “absurd that somebody who is involved in a controversy of this sort for his own remuneration should be deciding on the remuneration of those in the banks for which the State has responsibility”.
He raised the issue in the wake of the controversy surrounding the awarding of a bonus of €106,000 to Mr Collier, who said at the weekend he would not take it.
Earlier, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams that five semi-State organisations had written to confirm that bonuses would not be paid to their chief executives: RTÉ, TG4, ESB, Ordnance Survey Ireland, and An Post. He said they were waiting for a response from Eirgrid, Bord Gáis and Bord na Móna.
Mr Kenny said it was “beyond any normal common sense that persons who are exceptionally well paid get bonuses paid for performance beyond that”.
He said Minister for Public Service and Reform Brendan Howlin is undertaking a review of the award scheme for chief executives and “will consider a more direct input and oversight by ministers in Government so this situation doesn’t continue to apply”.
Mr Ross described the DAA as a “real example of abuse of power and a semi-State power having detached itself from the Government.”
He said Mr Collier was being awarded a €100,000 bonus “in the same year that junior staff on €30,000 were being forced to actually take a cut in pay. That’s the culture in which the semi-States are living”.
He added: “And this is in a company which last year saw passenger numbers drop by 13 per cent, which saw its debt being downgraded twice by Standards & Poor and saw it spending money on the biggest white elephant in the history of the State which will never show a commercial return.”
Mr Ross asked the Taoiseach to “comment on the appropriateness of someone like Mr Collier who is involved in this remuneration controversy being a public interest director in charge of remuneration on the board of a State-owned bank”.
“I find it certainly not good practice," Mr Kenny replied, adding that
“the message doesn’t seem to have got through” to some semi-States.
The Sinn Féin leader questioned the Government’s commitment to deal with the bonus issue. “What we’re looking for is a commitment that you will bring forward legislation to stop this bonus culture,” he said. “You can do it very quickly and Labour should bow their heads in shame when it affects the small people in this State.”
Mr Kenny said the Government had made it perfectly clear its view about bonus payments. “People in these positions are paid very well to do a job. In my view bonus payments are completely inappropriate.”
Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte was informing the chairs of the boards officially by letter, he said. The Government was making decisions to allow Ireland to be in charge of its own finances, he added.
Later tonight, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore later said he had confidence in Mr Collier.
"I think what we have to focus on here is that he did make the decision to forgo his bonus and that is something that I think Government welcomes and I think that we need to move on from it now," he said.