NTMA top earners agree to Noonan pay cut request

ALL BUT one of the top earners at the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) have acceded to a request from Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to take a 15 per cent pay cut.

Last December, Mr Noonan wrote to the State agency’s chief executive, John Corrigan, asking for staff on more than €200,000 “to consider waiving at least 15 per cent of salary or such amount of salary as exceeds €200,000”.

The agency, which manages the national debt and is the parent of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), falls outside public sector pay grades where a €200,000 pay cap applies.

In a written Dáil response to Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath, Mr Noonan confirmed that all members of the NTMA senior management team and four of the five other specialist staff earning more than €200,000 have agreed to waive 15 per cent of their salary or an amount that exceeds €200,000 if the application of the full 15 per cent cut would bring their salary below €200,000.

All but one of the agency’s top earners have agreed to the cut.

In his response to Mr Noonan’s December letter, NTMA chief executive John Corrigan wrote to the Minister stating that both he and Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh would take the 15 per cent pay cut.

The cut reduced Mr Corrigan’s annual salary to €416,500 and Mr McDonagh’s annual salary to €365,500.

However, in his letter, Mr Corrigan warned that imposing a pay cap of €200,000 on NTMA staff would impede its work and have “serious detrimental consequences” for the taxpayer.

“I must stress the NTMA’s increasing difficulty in recruiting and retaining key staff with the appropriate level of experience to work with us on issues vital to the State such as the planned re-entry to the international bond markets, the recovery of money for the taxpayer through Nama and the valuation and sale of State assets.”

Mr Corrigan told the Minister that senior NTMA managers had already taken an average 24 per cent by waiving performance-related payments for 2010.

In his written response to Mr McGrath, Mr Noonan also confirmed that five staff at the agency received aggregate bonus payments of €62,610 in 2011.

“The NTMA made performance-related payments to five key staff in respect of 2011. These payments in aggregate totalled €62,610. This compares with payments totalling €1,981,760 to 258 staff members in respect of 2010,” he said.

He added: “I have also been informed by the NTMA that the members of the NTMA senior management team also waived any consideration for performance-related pay in respect of 2011 – as they did previously for 2010.”

In February, Mr Noonan confirmed that 12 employees of the agency were then earning more than €250,000 a year.