McINERNEY HOLDINGS chief executive, Barry O’Connor, took a 50 per cent pay cut last year while he and his fellow executives received no bonuses.

The company recently reported that the business lost €47 million before tax as the recession hit in 2008. Exceptional items increased losses to over €200 million. In 2007, the company earned pretax profits of €58 million.

The group’s annual report shows Mr O’Connor’s pay and benefits package came to €574,000 in 2008, around half the €1.18 million he earned the previous year.

He was not paid a performance bonus last year.

In 2007, the group paid him a bonus of €573,000, more than the €425,600 basic salary he received that year.

In 2008 his basic salary was €446,930. The balance of his package was made up of benefits, social insurance costs and a pension payment of €56,300, slightly more than the €53,626 retirement contribution he received in 2007.

Overall, the group almost halved its executives’ remuneration in 2008 to €2.2 million from €4.16 million the previous year.

None of them received performance-related bonuses, which in 2007 came to €1.85 million.

Mr O’Connor’s fellow executives, Tommy Drumm, Mark Shakespeare and Enda Cunningham were all paid €358,500 in 2008, slightly ahead of the €341,400 they were paid in 2007.

However, as they received no bonuses, the final amount paid to the trio by the company was more or less halved. The group paid them totals of between €441,000 and €454,000 last year, compared to €800,000-plus in 2007.

Non-executive pay slipped only slightly at McInerney during 2008. Chairman Ned O’Sullivan, who is also chairman of Greencore, was paid fees of €120,000 last year, no change on 2007.

Three of the four other independent board members, Brendan Gilmore, Donal Roche and Oliver O’Mahony, were paid €56,731 in both 2008 and 2007.

Their colleague Michael Leece received €56,545 last year, compared with €63,792 in 2007.