THE NATIONAL Treasury Management Agency has indicated it is willing to disclose what it pays its chief executive John Corrigan after his predecessor, Dr Michael Somers, revealed for the first time his €1 million pay deal for 2008.
Dr Somers confirmed to The Irish Timesearlier this week that he received a €1 million pay package as chief executive of the NTMA for 2008. His pay was withheld as a closely guarded secret for the 19 years he ran the NTMA.
He disclosed his 2008 pay after details were set to be publicly disclosed to a newspaper following a request to the Department of Finance under the Freedom of Information Act, and an unsuccessful appeal by the NTMA to the Information Commissioner.
The department released details of his pay to a number of media outlets following the disclosure of Dr Somers's pay in an article in yesterday's Irish Times.
He received a salary of €565,000 and a bonus of €403,000. (Dr Somers had said he was paid a salary of €576,000, but contacted The Irish Timesyesterday to correct this figure.)
The department records show Dr Somers was entitled to a bonus of 75 per cent of his salary, and he was granted an increase on the previous year’s salary.
The figures were disclosed in a letter dated February 18th, 2008, from the chairman of the NTMA’s advisory committee to then minister for Finance, Brian Cowen.
Dr Somers said he also received a stipend of more than €30,000 for the year as a commissioner of the National Pension Reserve Fund, one of the State agencies managed at the NTMA.
This brought his total remuneration package for 2008 to just over €1 million, a figure that had been widely known but was never confirmed by Dr Somers until yesterday.
He told The Irish Timesthat he was paid a bonus for 2009, but it was lower than the previous year.
Bonuses were a significant component of pay at the NTMA to encourage employees to meet performance targets, and because basic salaries were kept at lower levels, he said. NTMA staff did not receive annual increases under national pay deals, he said.
An NTMA spokesman said Mr Corrigan had indicated that he would review the agency’s position on withholding details of his pay at the end of the processing of the Freedom of Information request.
He said Mr Corrigan was reviewing this and was likely to release details of his own pay.
An announcement could be made over the coming week to 10 days, he said, but the agency’s current focus was on the debt markets and the agency’s bond auction of Government debt next Tuesday.
“The confidentiality around the chief executive’s remuneration has become a distraction and [is] unhelpful,” said the spokesman. “Mr Corrigan would like to draw a line under this.”
However, the spokesman said there remained “compelling commercial reasons” to keep the salaries of NTMA directors and senior executives confidential.
Some 168 public servants employed at the NTMA shared salaries of €20.1 million in 2009, just over half of the agency’s €39 million annual budget.
In a decision to release the records, Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly criticised the way the Department of Finance signed off on the NTMA chief executive’s salary, saying the process should be more transparent.
Dr Somers’s pay was decided by the NTMA’s remuneration and advisory committees and signed off by the Minister for Finance.
His 2007 pay could not be revealed because the department had no record of the figure.
