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# Race for the Áras
Mary Davis releases full tax filings - and encourages other candidates to follow suit
Mary Davis attempts to draw a line under controversy about her earnings by publishing her tax filings for the last three years.
Updated, 16.19
PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL Mary Davis has released her P60 tax filings for each of the last three years, in a bid to address controversy over her tenure on the boards of two dozen state, corporate and charity boards.
In a statement this lunchtime, Davis said she was putting “all of the information in relation to every body I have worked with or given advice to during my adult working life” into the public domain – and called on others to do likewise.
Davis clarified that all of the data she had published was already in the public domain, and that she was merely collating it for the purposes of transparency.
Speculation about her earnings from state boards and other companies has been rife since a report in Saturday’s Irish Independent, which estimated that she had earned some €190,000 through appointment to state boards.
The P60s – which cover each of the last three calendar years – detail Davis’s earnings for each of the last three years, including her salary from her Special Olympics appointments and other appointments:
- 2010: Gross pay of €156,310; paying €9,912 in employee’s PRSI and €56,248.08 in income tax
- 2009: Gross pay of €149,107; paying €8.396.61 in employee’s PRSI and €53,295.05 in income tax
- 2008: Gross pay of €138,167.14; paying €2,644.28 in employee’s PRSI and €51,562.53 in income tax
In accompanying documents Davis outlined her earnings for her appointments to state boards and the boards of other private companies.
Davis earned €183,083.82 from appointments to the Dublin Airport Authority, the Broadcast Commission of Ireland and the National Sports Campus Development Authority, having sat on the latter board since 2000 and the others since 2004.
From her status as a director on non-state boards, Davis also earned:
- €133,641.86 from ICS Building Society, owned by Bank of Ireland, between 2004 and 2010
- €18,750 from Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank in 2010
- €55,158 from the Irish Times Trust between 2006 and 2011
Davis said her work with 18 other organisations had been “on an entirely voluntary capacity”.
Davis said she was “very happy for my history to be an open book” and said it was “only right and proper that the same standards of transparency be applied every other candidate in the race”:
Choosing a Head of State is an important matter, and I believe that the people should make that choice with their eyes open. This is the case for me, and also for every other candidate in this race.
A spokesperson for Davis later explained that her status as a director of Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank had been omitted from a list of appointments on her website simply as a result of human error.
Responding to requests that other candidates also publish their tax filings, a spokesperson for Sean Gallagher said he would not be commenting on his financial information “at this point”.
It is expected, however, that Gallagher will issue a statement on the matter later today.
A spokesperson for David Norris said he had “no problem” issuing his financial details; other candidates had yet to return contact at the time of publication.
A Labour Party spokesperson, meanwhile, said that Higgins’s earnings and pension entitlements as a minister and TD were already on the public record.
Download and read Davis’s documents in full:
- Mary Davis’s P60 forms (2008, 2009, 2010) – PDF format
- Mary Davis’s earnings as a director – PDF format
