Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath has suggested that the salaries of senior staff at the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and National Asset Management Agency (Nama) should be independently assessed.
Figures from Minister for Finance Michael Noonan show 216 staff, 106 at the NTMA and 110 at Nama, each earn between €100,000 and €200,000.
A further 11 NTMA staff and five Nama employees receive salaries of €200,000 to €300,000 and two staff are on between €400,000 and €500,000, one at each agency.
The Minister said in a written parliamentary reply to Mr McGrath that total remuneration included base salary and any other taxable benefits paid to employees including performance-related payments in 2016 for 2015.
Mr McGrath said the salaries appeared higher than in previous parliamentary replies but there had to be a balance between wages and skill sets.
He said that he was “not jumping on the populist bandwagon” of calling for cuts in Nama salaries unlike other parties and Independents.
Calibre of staff
The Cork South-Central TD said there was a high calibre of staff in the State agencies. “The demand for that type of expertise is quite high”, he said, so they had to be careful about the balance between keeping high-quality staff and the appropriate salary compared to private sector salaries.
Mr McGrath said “I’m not sure if the balance is quite right.” There had to be proper assessment of salary levels in comparison with the private sector. “It would be good to have independent assessment.”
In a separate reply to the Fianna Fáil spokesman about redundancy payments to Nama staff, Mr Noonan said €3.6 million had been paid to 50 staff who left under the 2016 voluntary redundancy scheme, which was part of an orderly wind-down plan.
Employees received two weeks’ statutory pay for each year of service capped at €600 a week, plus three weeks of base salary for every year of service with an overall cap of two years’ base salary. The Minister said the redundancy payments were in line with public sector norms.
Mr McGrath said the payments did not appear excessive. “But we should note that many thousands of people in the private sector have lost their jobs over the last few years and only got statutory redundancy.”
