SALARIES PAID to National Treasury Management Agency employees rose by 47 per cent to €40 million last year as more staff were hired to carry out new functions assigned to the State agency.
Employee numbers at the NTMA rose to 473 as of May 2012 from 169 at the end of 2009, primarily due to recruitment by the National Asset Management Agency, which falls under the NTMA’s remit and employs 214.
“There has been quite a dramatic increase in staff numbers, reflecting the new functions, mainly in Nama,” said John Corrigan, the NTMA’s chief executive.
NewEra, which will oversee the semi-State companies and the sale of State assets, was created within the NTMA in September 2011.
Mr Corrigan said the pay bill has fallen by more than 5 per cent this year on last year’s figure.
The NTMA’s annual report showed the agency paid performance-related pay totalling €62,000 to “five key staff” for their work in 2011 compared with payments totalling €1.98 million to 258 staff members a year earlier.
The report shows that 11 NTMA staff were paid more than €250,000 last year, including Mr Corrigan, who was paid €490,000, and Brian Murphy, chief executive of the National Development Finance Agency, another NTMA agency, who was paid €330,000.
The bulk of NTMA staff, 316 employees, were paid salaries between €50,000 and €150,000.
Consultancy fees and legal expenses paid by the NTMA totalled €38 million in 2011, up from €10.2 million the previous year. Banking-related functions accounted for €36.2 million of these costs, of which €23.3 million will be recovered from the banks covered by the State guarantee.
The NTMA said €16.7 million of these expenses related to costs arising from the settlement of legal proceedings relating to the recapitalisation of the banks.
Michael Torpey, head of the NTMA’s banking team on secondment at the Department of Finance, said they included payments relating to the settlement of legal actions taken by subordinated bondholders of the banks.
The National Pensions Reserve Fund’s discretionary investment portfolio, which relates to funds not invested in either Bank of Ireland or AIB, earned a 2.1 per cent return in 2011 and a further 3.1 per cent in the first half of this year.
Mr Corrigan said the discretionary fund had delivered an annualised return of 3.5 per cent a year since its inception in 2001.
Most of the NPRF, which was established to cover the State’s social welfare and public service pension costs after 2025, has been used to recapitalise the banks.
The fund was worth €13.9 billion at the end of June 2012, comprising the discretionary fund of €5.8 billion and the €8.1 billion value of the directed investments in Bank of Ireland and AIB.
