The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has said it is unaware of any public-service employer other than the Central Bank putting in place retention payments for its staff.
The department said yesterday it had not been asked to sanction retention payments for any employee across the public service.
It said it would “not be aware of their payment by any public-service employer, other than as has been identified by the Central Bank”.
The department’s statement came in the wake of the disclosure of controversial retention payments by the Central Bank to staff dating back to 2011. This is in spite of the Government having introduced financial emergency legislation in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, giving it the power to curb public-sector pay and ban bonuses.
Legal advice
The Central Bank did not seek the approval of Government for the retention payments and said it had received legal advice to the effect that the payments complied with the emergency legislation.
Some €234,176 has been paid by the Central Bank to staff over the past three years, with 29 staff currently in receipt of these payments, which equate, on average, to 21 per cent of their salaries.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank’s deputy governor yesterday said public-sector pay restrictions would continue to hamper the regulator’s ability to retain key staff at a time when better conditions were on offer from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.
High-quality staff
Speaking at a conference on banking union hosted by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, Cyril Roux said the ECB had been successful in attracting “high-quality staff” to the single supervisory mechanism (SSM), which took over responsibility for regulating euro-zone banks a year ago, with many staff being poached from national banking authorities, including the Central Bank. He said 20 Central Bank employees had joined the SSM.
“They have been attracted by the exciting challenge of working abroad, in helping establish the SSM, and the much better financial terms and employment conditions offered to them,” Mr Roux said.
“A second wave of supervisors is expected to leave the Central Bank and other national competent authorities next year, as the ECB will be increasing its SSM headcount by 25 per cent . . . This will bring further stresses to the bench strength of banking supervision in the Central Bank, and to the challenge of replenishing once more our ranks.”
