Two State banks pay over €150,000 to 57

A total of 57 employees of two State-owned financial institutions, Irish Life, and Permanent TSB, earn basic annual salaries in excess of €150,000, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has disclosed.

In a response to a Dáil question from Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty, Mr Noonan said some 38 employees of Irish Life receive annual salaries in excess of €150,000, with two earning more than €400,000. It was also disclosed that some 19 employees of Permanent TSB earn more than €150,000 per annum. The bank’s recently appointed chief executive Jeremy Masding earns a basic salary of €400,000, while nine employees earn annual salaries of between €200,000 and €399,000.

Further €60,000

Mr Masding also gets a further €60,000 paid towards his pension scheme. He was also in receipt of vouched expenses of €52,034 to compensate for costs incurred in relocating to Ireland earlier this year.

The chief executive of Irish Life, Kevin Murphy, received a salary last year of €500,000 and “other remuneration” of €86,000. Mr Doherty said last night that Mr Murphy’s pay package breached the Government’s own pay cap of €500,000 and added that his question had elicited the information that Mr Murphy, who is 62, will retire on an annual pension of €305,000.

Mr Doherty described the payment levels as obscene.

Earlier this month, it emerged that six executives at Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), including chief executive Mike Aynsley, are receiving annual pay packages of more than €500,000. In all 86 employees of the former Anglo Irish Bank, now wholly owned by the State, earn €150,000 or more each year as a basic salary.

Pension fund

In relation to AIB’s transfer of €1.1 billion on assets into its pension fund, Mr Noonan said the bank would have had to impose significant compulsory redundancies if it had not done so.

He said the transfer of the loans into the pension fund during the summer allowed the bank to proceed with a voluntary severance scheme to reduce staff numbers by 2,500.

He also disclosed the bank calculated that the total pension entitlement of former chief executive Eugene Sheehy was €10.5 million before he relinquished half of his annual €529,000 pension.