IRISH LIFE CEO Kevin Murphy receives a remuneration package that breaches the government’s pay cap, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty has said.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan confirmed that the Irish Life CEO receives a “salary of €500,000 and other remuneration of €86,000” in response to a parliamentary question.
Noonan said:
The salary and benefits of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) were fully disclosed on Page 62 of the 2011 Annual Report of Irish Life & Permanent Group Holdings plc which is available at www.permanenttsbgroup.ie. In summary the CEO of Irish Life & Permanent who has been CEO of Irish Life since it’s separation in June 2012, received a salary in 2011 of €500,000 and other remuneration of €86,000.
In response, Doherty said: “Earlier this year the government used €1.3bn of taxpayer’s money to purchase Irish Life from a company the state already owned. Today it is revealed that the CEO of Irish Life received a total pay packet of €586,000. This is in excess of the government’s own pay cap of €500,000. The question also revealed that Murphy will retire shortly on an annual pension of €305,000.
“This is totally unacceptable. In fact it is obscene. At a time when ordinary people are put to the pin of their collar, it is not acceptable that the heads of failed banks continue to receive lavish salaries and expense accounts paid for by the taxpayer,” he added.
A further parliamentary question reply estimated that the total value the pension pot of former AIB CEO Eugene Sheehy could amount to €10.5 million.
In response to a question by Doherty regarding payments to Sheehy, Noonan said:
AIB informs me that for an employee retiring at age 60 with 40 years pensionable service and an annual pension of €529,000, AIB estimates that the capital value accumulated in a fund to provide this annual figure would be approx. €10.5m.
“Despite this, the Minister for Finance has not written to any of these individuals asking them to take a voluntary pay cut. The Minister for Finance has been reviewing remuneration in Irish banks, twelve months on and no action has been taken to curb these excessive pay and expenses packages,” Doherty said.
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