SEMI-STATE companies have paid millions of euro to senior managers during 2010, according to sources within the companies.
Two commercial semi-State companies, the Dublin Airport Authority and Bord Gais last night confirmed they each paid around €2 million in bonuses to staff last year. Several other companies, including all CIE companies, said they have paid no bonuses in several years while others including Eirgrid, the Irish Aviation Authority and Bord na Mona have refused to state if they have paid bonuses.
A spokesman for Dublin Airport Authority said the company operates a system of performance-related pay and personal contracts for its managers.
Last year, a total of 400 people qualified for a performance-related payment. The average payment was €5,290, which equated to total performance-related remuneration of €2.1 million. These performance-related payments represented 1.4 per cent of the company’s overall payroll. It was pointed out that all staff at the authority had taken pay cuts.
A Bord Gais spokesman said 270 senior employees of the company had shared some €1,9 million in such payments last year. That averaged €7,400 per employee, said the spokesman, who added that it comprised 2.4 per cent of overall pay.
A spokesman for the Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte said there has been no tradition of the Government intervening in the fixing of salaries in State companies other than for the chief executive. The spokesman said the salaries were a matter for the companies but the Government expected the companies to identify the correct and most competitive salaries for their employees.
Separately, the chief executive of Eirgrid Dermot Byrne was paid a bonus of €23,000 for 2010 according to the companys annual report. The bonus, €17,000 less than for 2009, related to the year ending September 2010 and was paid in February this year.
Mr Rabbitte’s spokesman said it was paid before the change of Government and was therefore not captured by the letter written by Mr Rabbitte to chief executives asking them not to accept bonuses awarded.
Meanwhile, the Government Ministers with responsibility for commercial semi-State companies have said they are confident that no other chief executives have accepted bonuses for 2010. Following the decision at the weekend by Dublin Airport Authority chief executive Declan Collier not to accept the bonus of €106,000 for 2010, the three Ministers who have responsibility for 27 commercial state companies said the information available to them indicated no other chief executive received a bonus last year.
Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, Mr Rabbitte, and Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Simon Coveney have all written to the companies related to their departments asking them not to pay any bonus to chief executives for 2010 or for 2011.
The responses from the companies are being assessed in the departments and one Minister said yesterday that “one or two boards were still deliberating”.