Bumper pay packets for chosen few
THE Government signed off on half a dozen bumper salaries for public service positions over the last year including €200,000 a year for the project director responsible for building the controversial National Children’s Hospital.
The pay packets were approved by the Department of Public Expenditure following negotiations, according to documents seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday.
They included approval for:
■ €200,000 along with a car, health insurance, and access to an improved pension scheme for the chief executive of the newly created Land Development Agency;
■ An increase in the salary of Sport Ireland chief executive John
Treacy to €157,000 per annum;
■ An extension to the contract of IDA boss Martin Shanahan with a salary of €187,000 per annum;
■ Two separate deals for the project director and the chief officer of the National Children’s Hospital worth €200,000 and €177,175 respectively.
A series of separate deals were also hammered out for senior staff to be hired at the National Screening Service, the National Archives and the Health Insurance Authority.
All exceeded what had previously been allowed or related to newly created positions.
The most lucrative deal was that given to the new chief executive of the Land Development Agency, John Coleman, who was appointed last September.
Internal departmental records explain how a seven-year contract would be on offer with a basic salary of €200,000.
This was to originally include access to what is known as the public service pension scheme.
Three months later, the deal had been improved, with the provision of a car, as well as personal and family membership of a health insurance scheme to be funded by the employer.
In addition, the position would provide access to the pension scheme that applies to CEOs of commercial state bodies, which offers better terms than those previously on offer.
Two new packages were also created for senior roles on the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which is responsible for delivery of the controversial National Children’s Hospital where overruns are now expected to bring the final cost to more than €1.7bn.
Records released under a Freedom of Information request show enhanced salaries were being provided in recognition of the ‘significant increase in the scale and complexity of the role, the ongoing political, public and media interest in the project and the need to attract top-calibre candidates’.