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Half the CEOs of commercial state companies earn in excess of €250,000 a year despite pay ceiling

By Conor O’Carroll.

Just over €75 million has been spent on the salary and benefits of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of commercial state companies in the past decade, a Village investigation has revealed.

The total salary of half of these CEOs has exceeded €250,000 a year, while some pay packages reach €300,000 and beyond. This is despite a ‘pay ceiling’ of €250,000 a year being introduced in 2011 by then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, TD.

The cap was introduced amid the severe economic conditions facing the country at the time and set a general pay ceiling of €250,000 for future appointments to CEO posts within commercial state companies.

However, Village analysed the financial accounts of 28 of these companies since 2012 and found that while the basic salaries of CEOs typically fell below the pay ceiling, once the slew of benefits, performance bonuses, expenses and pension contributions were included, many of the salaries surpassed the government’s cap.

Since 2012, ESB has paid the most of any commercial state company on the total salary of its CEO, with over €4.2 million spent

State companies whose CEO’s basic salary exceeded the cap at the time of introduction were encouraged to take voluntary pay cuts to bring them in line with the regulations. Companies such as An Post, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and Coillte complied, bringing their base salaries under the cap within a few years of its introduction.

The base salary of the CEO of ESB, however, has had their salary rise since the pay cap, having received an exemption from the government. According to financial records, former CEO Pat O’Doherty’s salary was €295,000 in 2012 and this has risen to just over €318,000 for current CEO Paddy Hayes.

As with every other company, Hayes’ salary is also enlarged with various benefits meaning his total remuneration surpassed €389,000 for 2022, making him the best-paid CEO of a commercial state company.

Also high on the list of earners include Bord na Móna CEO Tom Donnellan, former RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes and Irish Aviation Authority CEO Peter Kearney.

Despite resigning from the DAA mid-way through the year, Dalton Philips still received the 3rd highest package of all the commercial state company CEOs, with total remuneration surpassing €340,000.

Each of those in the top 10 received a total salary that surpasses the €250,000 pay ceiling and analysis by Village found that total earnings for a further three state commercial company CEOs breached the cap in 2022.

On average, there was a roughly 30% increase in total take-home pay from the base salary once all the benefits and bonuses had been added.

Responding to Village’s findings, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson for Public Expenditure and Reform, Rose Conway-Walsh TD said “CEO pay in many cases is excessive” and that the “cap needs to be enforced and should cover all benefits and performance-based payments”.

The total salary of half of these CEOs has exceeded €250,000 a year, while some pay packages reach €300,000 and beyond

Others who earned just below the cap included the CEOs of Dublin Bus and the Dublin Port Company, both of whom left their respective roles at some point in 2022 and in previous years earned over €250,000.

Changing CEOs can often be expensive for these companies, with retirement benefits and pay for interim CEOs often driving the yearly cost up substantially.

Long-term ESB CEO Pat O’Doherty left the company after he retired in August 2021 and received over €500,000 before leaving. Hayes was appointed to replace him and after receiving his salary for the remaining months of the year, the total outlay for the year on CEO pay was almost €650,000.

Another €500,000 was spent by VHI that same year when John O’Dwyer retired in July 2021, taking home €387,000, while a further €136,000 was spent on Declan Moran as interim CEO. A further €366,000 was spent on two interim CEOs the following year, exceeding the typical remuneration of previous years.

A High Court decision in 2022 also obliged the Shannon Foynes Port Company to pay €373,000 in performance-related payments to current CEO Pat Keating for the years 2010-2017, substantially increasing the outlay for the company.

Since 2012, ESB has paid the most of any commercial state company on the total salary of its CEO, with over €4.2 million spent. The DAA and VHI are close behind with roughly €4 million spent apiece, while RTÉ and An Post make up the top five having spent a little of €3.5 million.

A further seven commercial state companies paid over €3 million in remuneration of their CEO over the period.  

In 2011, the government also introduced general salary guidelines for newly appointed CEOs of state commercial companies. Village analysed these figures and compared them with the most recent base salaries of the current CEOs, adjusting for inflation.

On average, there was a roughly 30% increase in total take-home pay from the base salary once all the benefits and bonuses had been added

Pay for CEOs at 12 state companies have exceeded these guidelines when adjusting the figures for inflation. Among those whose salaries exceed the adjusted salary guidelines by 10% are the Irish Aviation Authority (11%), Eirgrid (10%), the Cork Port Company (20%), the Shannon/Foynes Port Company (23%) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (25%) – previously the National Road Authority.

Not all state companies exceeded these guidelines, however, with some CEOs, including CIE (-36%), ESB (-13%), TG4 (-13%) and RTÉ (-8%), all receiving a base salary under the inflation-adjusted figures. Though, the appointment of Kevin Bakhurst as RTÉ Director-General and an increased base salary to €250,000 will all but wipe out the difference.

Conway-Walsh told Village that “the correct and fair level for CEO pay is something that can be debated but state-owned companies must adhere to the salary cap set by government”.

“The current approach to CEO pay in state-owned enterprises undermines transparency”, she continued, and while “there should be performance-based component to CEO salaries, this should be done within the existing cap”. 

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    €75m spent on CEOs of commercial state companies in the last decade

    by

    Half the CEOs of commercial state companies earn in excess of €250,000 a year despite pay ceiling By Conor O’Carroll. Just over €75 million has been spent on the salary and benefits of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of commercial state companies in the past decade, a Village investigation has revealed. The total salary of half of these CEOs has exceeded €250,000 a year, while some pay packages reach €300,000 and beyond. This is despite a ‘pay ceiling’ of €250,000 a year being introduced in 2011 by then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, TD. The cap was introduced amid the severe economic conditions facing the country at the time and set a general pay ceiling of €250,000 for future appointments to CEO posts within commercial state companies. However, Village analysed the financial accounts of 28 of these companies since 2012 and found that while the basic salaries of CEOs typically fell below the pay ceiling, once the slew of benefits, performance bonuses, expenses and pension contributions were included, many of the salaries surpassed the government’s cap. Since 2012, ESB has paid the most of any commercial state company on the total salary of its CEO, with over €4.2 million spent State companies whose CEO’s basic salary exceeded the cap at the time of introduction were encouraged to take voluntary pay cuts to bring them in line with the regulations. Companies such as An Post, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and Coillte complied, bringing their base salaries under the cap within a few years of its introduction. The base salary of the CEO of ESB, however, has had their salary rise since the pay cap, having received an exemption from the government. According to financial records, former CEO Pat O’Doherty’s salary was €295,000 in 2012 and this has risen to just over €318,000 for current CEO Paddy Hayes. As with every other company, Hayes’ salary is also enlarged with various benefits meaning his total remuneration surpassed €389,000 for 2022, making him the best-paid CEO of a commercial state company. Also high on the list of earners include Bord na Móna CEO Tom Donnellan, former RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes and Irish Aviation Authority CEO Peter Kearney. Despite resigning from the DAA mid-way through the year, Dalton Philips still received the 3rd highest package of all the commercial state company CEOs, with total remuneration surpassing €340,000. Each of those in the top 10 received a total salary that surpasses the €250,000 pay ceiling and analysis by Village found that total earnings for a further three state commercial company CEOs breached the cap in 2022. On average, there was a roughly 30% increase in total take-home pay from the base salary once all the benefits and bonuses had been added. Responding to Village’s findings, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson for Public Expenditure and Reform, Rose Conway-Walsh TD said “CEO pay in many cases is excessive” and that the “cap needs to be enforced and should cover all benefits and performance-based payments”. The total salary of half of these CEOs has exceeded €250,000 a year, while some pay packages reach €300,000 and beyond Others who earned just below the cap included the CEOs of Dublin Bus and the Dublin Port Company, both of whom left their respective roles at some point in 2022 and in previous years earned over €250,000. Changing CEOs can often be expensive for these companies, with retirement benefits and pay for interim CEOs often driving the yearly cost up substantially. Long-term ESB CEO Pat O’Doherty left the company after he retired in August 2021 and received over €500,000 before leaving. Hayes was appointed to replace him and after receiving his salary for the remaining months of the year, the total outlay for the year on CEO pay was almost €650,000. Another €500,000 was spent by VHI that same year when John O’Dwyer retired in July 2021, taking home €387,000, while a further €136,000 was spent on Declan Moran as interim CEO. A further €366,000 was spent on two interim CEOs the following year, exceeding the typical remuneration of previous years. A High Court decision in 2022 also obliged the Shannon Foynes Port Company to pay €373,000 in performance-related payments to current CEO Pat Keating for the years 2010-2017, substantially increasing the outlay for the company. Since 2012, ESB has paid the most of any commercial state company on the total salary of its CEO, with over €4.2 million spent. The DAA and VHI are close behind with roughly €4 million spent apiece, while RTÉ and An Post make up the top five having spent a little of €3.5 million. A further seven commercial state companies paid over €3 million in remuneration of their CEO over the period.   In 2011, the government also introduced general salary guidelines for newly appointed CEOs of state commercial companies. Village analysed these figures and compared them with the most recent base salaries of the current CEOs, adjusting for inflation. On average, there was a roughly 30% increase in total take-home pay from the base salary once all the benefits and bonuses had been added Pay for CEOs at 12 state companies have exceeded these guidelines when adjusting the figures for inflation. Among those whose salaries exceed the adjusted salary guidelines by 10% are the Irish Aviation Authority (11%), Eirgrid (10%), the Cork Port Company (20%), the Shannon/Foynes Port Company (23%) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (25%) – previously the National Road Authority. Not all state companies exceeded these guidelines, however, with some CEOs, including CIE (-36%), ESB (-13%), TG4 (-13%) and RTÉ (-8%), all receiving a base salary under the inflation-adjusted figures. Though, the appointment of Kevin Bakhurst as RTÉ Director-General and an increased base salary to €250,000 will all but wipe out the difference. Conway-Walsh told Village that “the correct and fair level for CEO pay is something that can be debated but state-owned companies must adhere to the salary cap set by government”. “The current approach to CEO pay in state-owned enterprises undermines transparency”, she continued, and while

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    Time to nail US based swimming-coach paedophile George Gibney.

    by

    Ireland disgraces itself over the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history. By Irvin Muchnick George Gibney, the story that won’t die, is also the story that won’t live – or at least isn’t given the oxygen to breathe. The latest example follows last November’s headlines about the status of investigations by the Garda and the Director of Public Prosecutions. They suggest that this Olympic year could be the one that finally delivers justice in the excruciating legacy of Gibney, whom I call the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history. But that probably won’t happen if the authorities are under no pressure to drop the other shoe. The grain of Irish journalism custom and draconian defamation contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports Only constant reminders of the range and tawdry depths of this scandal have the promise of holding government officials’ feet to the fire and ensuring that the current prospective new Gibney prosecution doesn’t fizzle, in the manner of multiple previous initiatives. Unfortunately, constant reminders are precisely what the Irish news media, simply waiting on an announcement by the DPP that a Gibney prosecution 2.0 will proceed, aren’t equipped to provide. Such an announcement could take many more months or even years, especially in the absence of aggressive reporting at intervals of official responses to follow-up queries, and of informed and responsibly labelled speculation and analysis. All this would go against the grain of Irish journalism custom and practice, as well as the country’s absence of an equivalent to America’s First Amendment and the resulting presence of a draconian defamation law regime. These contribute to a regime of passive waiting – followed by lapsed public memory. Indeed, they contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to expose and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports. In my analysis, the current Gibney initiative could actually, finally, be the real deal. I say this because of reports that gardaí are confident, should the DPP pull the trigger, that the US will cooperate in extraditing Gibney for trial. There appears to be significant movement behind the scenes in both countries. I’ve never seen that element in past major reporting clusters on bringing Gibney to justice, the last of which was in 2018, in the wake of the resolution of my Freedom of Information Act case against the US Department of Homeland Security, which partially daylighted Gibney’s immigration records and raised key questions surrounding them. The grain of Irish journalism custom and draconian defamation contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports Clearly, the 2020 BBC/Second Captains podcast series Where Is George Gibney?, for all my criticisms of its shortcomings, changed the dynamic. Podcaster Mark Horgan introduced the voices of fresh Gibney accusers. What this means is that the Garda and the DPP no longer have to tussle with the problem of trying to revive old cases that got quashed by a controversial Irish Supreme Court procedural ruling 30 years ago. Instead, the criminal justice authorities can advance entirely new cases. And they have the wind at their backs because of more recent Irish case law on historical abuses, which is now less friendly to defendants. In urging on the Irish media, I don’t mean to suggest that their First Amendment-fortified American counterparts have fared any better. Many of the 5 million denizens of the Republic of Ireland are well familiar with the Gibney agony. However, even though this head coach of the Irish Olympic swimming team in 1984 and 1988 has been a US resident alien for nearly 30 years, few of the 35 million members of America’s Irish diaspora so much as know who he is. American journalists are guilty of the same flawed method of not staying on top of important criminal investigations and informing news consumers as to how they resolved, or if they remain open and why. (Last year Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor, wrote an essay in the New York Times arguing that it’s unfair – to investigative targets as well as the public – for the government to fall permanently silent on high-profile investigations.  Bharara urged a prospective practice of affirmative announcements by prosecutors of the ends of investigations.) In 2014, USA Swimming’s long-time chief executive, Chuck Wielgus, stood down from induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in the face of a protest petition organised by survivors of sexual abuse by their coaches. In 2017, Wielgus died. The next year American newspapers, in their usual atomised way, reported that there was a grand jury investigation of USA Swimming for decades of insurance fraud and cover-ups of abuse cases, but connected none of the dots. Thus, in the same manner as that of umpteen supposed new runs at a Gibney prosecution, that story was “one and done” in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other outlets; it faded away. In both Ireland and America, standard media accounts of Gibney omit critical context. Missing elements include the mystery of Gibney’s American green card; the collusion by American swimming authorities that contributed to his ability to abscond to the US on a diversity lottery visa; and the overall horror show that is underage athletes’ past and ongoing exposure to the predation of bad actor coaches in Olympic sports – everywhere. Gibney was indicted in Ireland in 1993 on 27 counts of indecent carnal knowledge of swimmers in his supervision. That prosecution, however, got barred by a controversial Irish Supreme Court ruling that the passage of time had prejudiced his ability to mount a fair defence. Gibney was released. He repaired first to Scotland and then to the US. In 1995, Gibney lost his last coaching job, for a USA Swimming-sanctioned club in Colorado,

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