Lisa O'Carroll's Ireland business blog

Salaries in public sector 'shocking'

But can the government succeed in driving down 'fat cat' pay at semi-state bodies through persuasion alone?
Dublin Airport Teminal 2, Ireland
The head of the Dublin Airport Authority earned €568,100 in the year to December 2009. Photograph: Ros Drinkwater/Alamy

Pay at semi-state bodies is under fire in Ireland again following the publicaton of the long-awaited report into the privatisation of state assets conducted by economist Colm McCarthy.

The report recommends the sale of everything from the national TV transmission network to the partial sale of electricity and gas supply companies, moves that could generate some €5bn for the nation's parlous exchequer.

But the government and McCarthy are already agreed this won't happen immediately as a robust regulatory regime needs to be put in place first and the focus, once again, is on the "fat cat" pay of bosses in the public sector.

The Irish Independent splashes with the story that ministers are "powerless to cut semi-state wages" even though the minister for public expenditure, Brendan Howlin, says that the levels of pay might come as a "shock" and "surprise" to many.

Why Howlin thinks it's a shock is not clear - the lead government party, Fine Gael, conducted its own survey into semi-state pay while in opposition and published figures close to those contained in the McCarthy report.

But the report fills in some of the gaps and also shows that good times are still rolling in some quarters with some of the semi-state organisations paying bonuses in 2009 and 2010 despite requests not to do so.

This is the type of silly thing that gets them into trouble and lands them so much attention, even if they do generate hundreds of millions for state coffers.

The 179-page report shows the highest paid executive in the semi-states is Padraig McManus, the chief executive of the electricity company, the ESB, who received €752,000 in pay, bonuses and pension. This was for the year to December 2009, a year before the government announced a cap of €250,000 on basic salary.

In all, bosses at 10 semi-states earned nearly €4.4m a year.


1. ESB (electricity supply) €752,568
2. Dublin Airport Authority €568,100
3. An Post €500,000
4. Coillte (forestry) €417,000
5. Eirgrid (electricity transmission) €407,000
6. Bord Gáis (gas) €394,000
7. Bord na Móna (bogs) €392,000
8. RTE (national broadcaster) €326,000
9. Irish Aviation Authority €324,000
10. Dublin Port €317,000

The report also showed averages for rank and file worker. The table below which shows average pay including pension contributions.


Irish Airport Authority €120,300
Dublin Port €110,600
Eirgrid €96,900
ESB €94,300
Bord Gáis €77,200
RTE €65,600
Coillte €63,700
CIE (bus and trains) €54,000
Dublin Airport Authority €51,700
An Post €49,200
Bord na Móna €46,900

So what do the figures tell us? What do you think?

Certainly Howlin thinks the pay is generous and has promised a root and branch pay review in the public sector that is likely to include comparison with the UK and other competitor countries, as recommended by McCarthy.

That will show only one thing - Irish pay is way ahead of the UK in many sectors including politics.

But until we have these hard facts and see how teachers, police, university lecturers, gas engineers, railway engineers, traffic controllers etc get paid in comparison to other countries, it is difficult to see where Howlin can go wth this issue.

As he said on RTE's Morning Ireland radio show: "There are contractual arrangements with existing people and we live in a litigious country."

He wants the bosses in the public sector to lead by example.

"If we are asking people on the lowest tier of incomes to bear burdens – and we have done that – if we are asking people to carry a burden to a purpose and the purpose is economic recovery, then we must give example at the top.

"We are trying genuinely to capture the country in a collective effort to bring us from a bad place, an economic disaster zone, into a better place and that will be done by shared burden and nobody can be exempt of that."

Howlin needs more than a tailwind with that one, or perhaps a more coercive attitude.

Moral suasion doesn't have much of a history in Ireland. The country doesn't do resignations. It doesn't do falling on its sword. The country has been in a "bad place" for three years now and when the history books are written, the chapter marked "resignations" will be a thin one.

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