MINISTER FOR FINANCE Michael Noonan has conceded that the issue of bankers’ pay needs to be ‘examined’, after it emerged that a senior manager at AIB received over €3m in pay last year – after his predecessor Brian Lenihan ordered him to step down.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived in Government Buildings for a meeting of the Cabinet this morning, Noonan said the issue needed a review – but stressed that the pay to former AIB managing director Colm Doherty hdated back to the previous government.
The payout to Doherty – most of which was paid in lieu of his notice to quit, and in lieu of his pension – was the remnant of “a very strong legacy from the previous government which we are trying to clear up,” the Irish Times quotes Noonan as offering.
News of Doherty’s pay, published in this morning’s Times, came as the Cabinet met to discuss the findings of the Nyberg Report into the management and collapse of the banking sector.
That report is expected to be published later this afternoon, assuming that the Cabinet gave its approval for the publication at today’s meeting.
The Irish Bank Officials’ Association, meanwhile, said it “beggars belief” that Doherty could have claimed so much in pay when the organisation had run up billions in losses in the year of his departure.
Its general secretary Larry Broderick said the culture at the top of the banks had evidently not changed, despite the news of 2,000 impending job losses at the bank.
Doherty was paid his annual salary of €432,000 last year, but when Brian Lenihan ordered his departure under the terms of AIB’s bailout, he also received €707,000 in lieu of his year’s notice – and another €2m contribution to make up for his pension.
The Department of Finance has insisted, however, that it did not sign off on the payment, and that it was a matter for AIB.
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