Taoiseach urged to end culture of 'insider' rewards

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny has said “it is not good practice” for Dublin Airport Authority chief executive Declan Collier to also be on the remuneration committee of the board of AIB, to which he was appointed as a public interest director.

He was responding to Independent TD Shane Ross, who asked him to “consider the position” of Mr Collier and to “stop this culture whereby insiders are rewarding insiders”.

Mr Ross revealed in the Dáil that Mr Collier was on the bank’s remuneration committee.

The chief executive was at the centre of controversy about his deferred 2010 bonus of €106,000 which, after pressure from Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, he said he would forgo.

The Dublin South TD highlighted that 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 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”.

Earlier, Mr 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.

The chief executives of Bord na Móna and Bord Gáis later confirmed they would not be taking their bonus payments.

The Taoiseach said it was “beyond any normal common sense that persons who are exceptionally well paid get bonuses paid for performance beyond that”.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform was undertaking a review of the award scheme for CEOs 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 Dublin Airport Authority as a “real example of abuse of power and a semi-State power having detached itself from the Government”.

“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’s 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”.

The Taoiseach replied: “I find it certainly not good practice.”

Mr Adams, who raised the issue, questioned the Government’s commitment to deal with it and to end the “bonus culture”.

He also highlighted the revelation that semi-State organisations had paid their senior managers millions of euros in bonuses during 2010.

“Bord Gáis paid €1.9 million in bonuses last year, while the Dublin Airport Authority paid €2.1 million, exactly the amount needed to reverse the cutbacks this Government will impose on rural school transport schemes, which will affect people across the State.”

He told the Taoiseach: “What we’re looking for is a commitment that you will bring forward legislation to stop this bonus culture.”

Mr Kenny said the Government had made it perfectly clear the Government’s view about bonus payments.

“People in these positions are paid very well to do a job. In my view bonus payments are completely inappropriate.”

He said the Government “expects leadership from the top when it comes to adjusting to the economic reality”.

“People will be asked to make further sacrifices and in that context we must have a situation where leadership comes from the front.”