THE NATIONAL Treasury Management Agency is still consulting with 14 staff, who earn more than €200,000, about last December’s request from the Minister for Finance to take a 15 per cent pay cut or a reduction to the €200,000 public-sector pay cap.
Minister Michael Noonan wrote to NTMA chief executive John Corrigan on December 21st to ask staff earning more than €200,000 to reduce their salary to that level.
The Minister asked them “to consider waiving at least 15 per cent of salary, or such amount of salary as exceeds €200,000”.
In a letter sent to the Minister on December 22nd, Mr Corrigan said he had circulated the request to the relevant employees.
He warned that applying a €200,000 pay cap without regard to comparative private-sector pay would “directly impede” the NTMA in its work with “serious detrimental consequences for the exchequer and taxpayer”.
A spokesman for the NTMA said that there were 16 employees at the agency who were earning more than €200,000 when they received Mr Noonan’s letter.
Mr Corrigan and Brendan McDonagh, chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency, which falls under the NTMA’s remit, both took a 15 per cent pay cut in response to the Minister’s request.
Their salaries fell to €416,500 and €365,500 respectively.
The NTMA spokesman said that the consultation with the relevant staff about the Minister’s request had not yet been concluded, saying the reasons for this included Christmas holidays, travel and annual leave.
Pay levels at the NTMA fall outside public-sector grades so that it can recruit specialists and staff in mid-career who would not ordinarily work in the public sector, by offering them private-sector pay on individually agreed deals.
The Government’s decision to set a €200,000 pay cap on public servants last year did not include the NTMA or the Central Bank.
The Government did, however, decide that it would raise the possibility of compelling the two State bodies to publish salary rates for individuals earning more than €200,000 and whether this might require legislative changes.
Frank Daly, the chairman of Nama, said last week that only a handful of its staff earned more than €200,000 and that the average salary was “well below” €100,000.
