Irish estate agents will be looking again at their monthly pay and bonus cheques after an article in the Estate Gazette which shows that the top people in the UK firm FPD Savills make serious money. In a bonus scheme that would put some of the leading technology firms in the shade, the top earners in the company have been breaking £750,000 for the first time. The Commercial head, Justin Roberts, had a salary of just £90,000 but picked up a bonus of a whopping £669,691. The director of commercial investments meanwhile pulled down virtually the same money, while the lowest director's bonus was the mere £190,000 earned by Rupert Sebag-Montefiore. Meanwhile, the firms' 2,311 employees earned an average of £12,809 in bonuses on top of average salaries of £16,885. The directors bonuses are the rewards for a good financial year for FPD Savills, where pre-tax profits rose 31 per cent to £20.2 million.

The whole area of bonuses is jealously guarded in the main Dublin estate agencies, though you can be sure that their earnings reflect the massive increase in business seen over the last five years. However, Dublin's top earners could well come from a few smaller agencies controlled by one or two individuals with strong clients and lower overheads.