Sir Anthony O'Reilly, the executive chairman of Independent News & Media (IN&M) received a 40 per cent pay rise last year, taking his remuneration to €1.226 million, including a bonus of €350,000.

Even more generous pay rises were awarded to other executive directors with Mr Brendan Hopkins, the head of the company's Australasian operations, receiving €1.072 million, an increase of 67 per cent. His bonus was €291,000.

Mr Ivan Fallon, who runs the company's UK operations.received €944,000 in respect of his role with IN&M and another €123,000 in respect of his directorship of iTouch, an associate company that provides mobile services. His total package was €1.067 million, including a bonus of €305,000 - an increase of 80 per cent on his package in 2003.

Mr Gavin O'Reilly, who is the chief operating officer of the group, got a 50 per cent pay rise, seeing his package rise to €986,000, including bonuses of €300,000 and €11,000 in respect of iTouch.

The seven executive directors shared a total of €6.584 million (including iTouch payments) - an average of €940,000. This compared to 2002 when 10 directors shared €6.977 million, which is the equivalent of €697,000 each.

Mr Donal Buggy, the chief financial officer, was paid €527,000 in respect of six months of the year, while Mr Vincent Crowley, the head of the Irish operations, earned €870,000. Mr Jim Parkinson, who stepped down as finance director received €764,000.

According to a spokesman for the company, no director received bonuses in 2002, with the exception of Mr Crowley. "In 2003 the company delivered record operating profits and completed a highly successful recapitalisation programme," he said.

The figures were disclosed in the company's annual report released yesterday. In his chairman's statement, Sir Anthony was heavily critical of the Government, blaming it for the the collapse of Chorus Communications, the cable television company in which IN&M lost €107 million. Chorus was taken over by Liberty Media earlier this year and restructured.

Sir Anthony described Chorus as "a case study in broken promises, overregulation". He said the Government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal deflectors in the early 1990s may "have bought temporary political popularity but the price was the long-term erosion of the economic viability of all cable companies".