The good times continued at the top of the Irish corporate ladder in 2025 as chief executive pay rose once again.
The average remuneration packages of the 19 long-standing bosses of the largest Irish publicly-quoted companies rose 9.6 per cent to €4.79 million in 2025, marking a third straight annual surge as global stock markets powered ahead and corporate earnings held up against heightened trade and geopolitical uncertainty, according to figures compiled by The Irish Times.
The figures include chief executives of Irish companies listed on the Iseq 20 index in Dublin, the FTSE 350 in London and companies that have moved their main listings to New York in recent years.
Each had been in their role for at least two years at the end of their company’s latest annual financial period to provide comparable remuneration figures. Some figures are skewed by large stock bonus awards, which are heavily linked to share-price performance.
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While soaring average pay had been driven in recent years by outsized equity awards at companies that moved their main stock market listings to Wall Street, last year saw bosses of some businesses that have retained their primary listings on this side of the Atlantic also benefiting from US-style stock incentives, including Cairn Homes’ Michael Stanley and Dalton Philips of Greencore.
The final list was compiled after DCC and Ryanair recently filed their annual reports for their financial years to the end of March.
The median chief executive compensation package, which gives a better picture of the pay landscape by eliminating distorting effects of outliers on the pay scales, was €3.83 million. By comparison, the median salary in the Irish Republic stood at €44,816 in 2024, according to the latest available figures from the Central Statistics Office.
Who are the big earners?
Peter Jackson, chief executive Flutter Entertainment, the gambling giant behind a range of businesses including Paddy Power bookmakers and FanDuel in the US, retained his position as the top-paid executive on the list for a second straight year. It followed the group using the 2024 move of its main listing to New York to bring incentive levels more up to speed with corporate bosses on the other side of the Atlantic.
However, his $19.7 million (€17.2 million) compensation last year marked an 11 per cent annual decline, following an exceptionally large stock-based uplift in 2024. Despite the drop, it stood at 351 times the median $56,101 pay package of the group’s 25,800 staff.
A 50 per cent slump in the share price of the group this year, as the previously fast-growing FanDuel came under growing pressure from so-called “prediction markets”, is on track to negatively impact Jackson’s 2026 package.
Flutter’s primary US listing brings it under pay disclosure rules brought in by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in late 2022. They require listed companies to outline what is known as compensation actually paid (CAP), which includes the effect of recent changes in the value of current and potential stock holdings. Under that measure, Jackson’s plunged last year to $3.6 million from almost $38 million in 2024.
Smurfit Westrock chief executive Tony Smurfit’s remuneration slumped 23 per cent last year to $16.4 million as the group’s share price and earnings dropped amid a downturn in the packaging industry. Still, his pay was 271 times the median $60,554 pay of all other employees in the cardboard box-making group.
Company shares slid 28 per cent last year hitting total shareholder returns, which are an important part of performance-related remuneration. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS), another key component, slipped at a similar pace. The group was created two years ago this week from the merger of Smurfit Kappa and US rival Westrock. It ditched the Irish stock market in the process and took on Westrock’s New York listing. Smurfit’s CAP-based remuneration came to minus $726,562, as his package weathered an $11 million hit on the fair value of outstanding and unvested equity awards granted in prior years.
An honourable mention goes to Jim Mintern, chief executive of CRH, who does not make the actual list because he only took up the role at the start of 2025 with no comparison on the prior year possible. His package amounted to $17.8 million for the year – some 303 times the median of everyone else who worked for the building materials and services group.
Michael Stanley of housebuilder Cairn Homes topped the charts of Dublin-listed companies with a compensation package of €8.56 million. It marked a 228 per cent jump on the previous year, thanks to a chief executive incentive plan the group managed to get over the line at an extraordinary general meeting in 2024, albeit with dissent from almost a third of voting shareholders. He received more than €6 million of stock awards last year under the programme, with the value turbocharged by a doubling of the share price between the shareholders’ meeting and the end of last year. Cairn does not disclose its chief executive pay ratio to employees, as it is not required from a company with a main listing in Ireland.
Greencore chief executive Dalton Philips takes the number four spot on the list, with a 245 per cent jump in his remuneration to €6.49 million. This was driven by a €4.54 million stock-based bonus.
The London-listed sandwiches and ready meals maker’s shares are up 180 per cent since Philips took charge in late 2022 and oversaw an earnings turnaround at the group as well as the £1.2 billion (€1.4 billion) takeover of rival Bakkavor in January. Nevertheless, the stock has dropped in recent months amid concerns about inflation and consumer confidence in the UK.
Philips’s pay last year equated to 181 times the median for staff based in the UK, Greencore said in its annual report, adhering to a reporting requirement of companies listed on London’s main market with more than 250 employees in the country.
Kerry Group’s Edmond Scanlon held on to his position among the top five, even though his reward package contracted by 17.3 per cent – making him the biggest percentage decliner – to €4.99 million. The taste and nutrition ingredients group’s share price pulled back about 15 per cent last year.
Glenveagh Properties head Stephen Garvey saw his pay rise 30 per cent to €3.55 million. The builder’s board went to shareholders at its annual meeting in May with a proposal to award him 11 million stock options in a one-off arrangement “to ensuring the retention and continued motivation of Stephen than making a structural upward reset to his existing pay package”. It hasn’t been universally welcomed. Some 28.3 per cent of votes at the meeting were cast against the plan.
Bank of Ireland chief executive Myles O’Grady was another winner last year, with his package increasing 36 per cent to €1.86 million. In July 2025 he started to receive the full benefit of a plan to award him shares worth the equivalent of 100 per cent of his basic salary. The size of the so-called fixed share allowance – designed to get around the fact that Irish banks that received a bailout during the financial crisis still cannot pay bonuses above €20,000 – has increased gradually from 25 per cent of salary in recent years.
AIB chief executive Colin Hunt’s annual salary was immediately hiked to €795,000 from €500,000 last summer after the Government sold its remaining shares in the bank before being increased again in January to €1.35 million to be “much more closely aligned to market norms”, AIB said in its annual report. AIB also plans to use fixed share awards – with no performance conditions attached – that will be set at a maximum of 100 per cent of salary. Hunt’s total remuneration last year amounted to €730,000.
Pay restrictions were lifted at the same time last year at PTSB. Chief executive Eamonn Crowley received his first pay increase since taking on the role in 2020, moving his annual salary up from €480,000 to €695,000. The agreed sale of PTSB to Austrian banking group Bawag, which is set to be completed either later this year or early in 2027, is likely to increase pressure on the Government to further ease bonus restrictions in the sector.
O’Grady’s remuneration last year equated to 27 times the median pay of the rest of Bank of Ireland’s staff. The ratio at AIB and PTSB was below 13.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary’s €3.83 million package last year puts him in the Mr Median spot on this list. But nothing is middling about his incentive arrangements. The figure includes a €2 million accounting charge for a share options plan agreed in 2019 that is worth more than a net €100 million to the businessman. O’Leary qualified for the large pay-day in May last year after shares in the carrier breached a target level. However, he will have to stay at Ryanair until the end of July 2028 to collect the payout.
O’Leary agreed last month to extend his contract to 2032 (when he will be 71) in a deal that could net him an additional €150 million or so by way of another stock options plan.
His option to buy Ryanair shares at an agreed price pales, however, in comparison to the stock awards granted to the chief executive of another Dublin-headquartered aviation group: Aengus Kelly of aircraft leasing behemoth AerCap.
Having overseen the group growing from 350 aircraft to about 3,500 owned, managed or on-order assets since his appointment 15 years ago – propelled by the acquisitions of International Lease Finance Corporation and GE Capital Aviation Services – Kelly was awarded $232 million of restricted shares in the business last year triggering an immediate grant-date accounting charge even though most of them do not vest until 2029.
Combined with his $961,161 basic salary, $3.5 million cash bonus and other benefits, his total remuneration last year amounted to $237.5 million – the biggest known annual package at an Irish-run public company.
While AerCap is legally incorporated in the Netherlands, its headquarters and tax residency are in Ireland. Kelly does not feature on The Irish Times ranking list because the company has never been listed in Dublin.
Ireland is the legal home of many other US-listed companies – many having set up camp here for tax reasons while basing their operational headquarters elsewhere – with chief executives on eye-watering rewards packages.
Professional services firm Aon’s boss of two decades, Gregory Case, received a package worth $73.7 million, some $68.8 million of which was by way of stock awards.
A number of other chief executives were in the $20 million to $30 million bracket last year. These include: Julie Sweet of technology and consulting services group Accenture ($29.6 million); Dave Regnery of air conditioning business Trane Technologies ($27.3 million); Sanjiv Lamba of industrial gas distributor Linde ($21.7 million); and Geoff Martha of medical devices group Medtronic ($21.2 million).
The median chief executive pay across companies listed on the US’s S&P 500 index last year was $17.9 million, according to a recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal of public company intelligence firm MyLogIQ’s data.
Elon Musk’s $158 billion pay package last year from Tesla, which he has led since 2008, set a record globally and was about 16 times the combined value for all 391 other chiefs in The Wall Street Journal’s recent annual chief executive pay ranking. Musk’s remuneration was part of an off-the-charts rewards plan aimed at motivating him to spend more time with the electric-vehicle maker and meet a number of stretching targets. The 10-year deal could be worth $1 trillion if Musk hits every milestone, which includes growing the group’s market value to $8.5 trillion. It currently stands at $1.26 trillion.
The second-largest US package was enjoyed by design-software company Figma’s boss, Dylan Field. Figma isn’t among S&P 500 companies, however.
US healthcare property group Welltower’s chief executive, Shankh Mitra, came in at number three with a package of $821 million. Welltower’s continuing acquisitions spree included its £5.2 billion purchase of the Barchester Healthcare nursing home group in the UK.
That deal crystallised a huge pay-day for Barchester’s former main owners – Irish billionaires JP McManus, Dermot Desmond and John Magnier.
