A union leader yesterday expressed "amazement" at the scale of payments to board members of Eircom.
Ms Rhona McSweeney, outgoing president of the Public Service Executive Union, said the reflotation of the telephone company was good news for staff members of its Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT).
But she said the potential cash benefits to staff were soured by the "extraordinary payouts" that members of the board and senior executives had awarded themselves.
The four executive directors of the company earned €29 million between them in the 2½ years since the firm was taken private by Valentia Telecommunication.
The payments were disclosed in the prospectus for the company's return to the stock market last month.
Six directors held shares worth a total of €7.75 million heading into the flotation, some of which they sold.
Ms McSweeney, addressing the PSEU conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, said her union was "as amazed as anyone else" at the scale of the monies involved.
"Clearly the sacrifices made by the staff in Eircom through restructurings and improved productivity were never intended to generate rewards for the few at the top."
Another public service union with members in Eircom, the CPSU, has already expressed "serious concern" at the scale of payments to board members, including representatives of the ESOT.
In a circular to members last month, it said the size of the payments "simply cannot be justified".
In her conference address, Ms McSweeney also rejected criticism of the benchmarking payments to public servants.
"We deserve this award. The benchmarking body recognised that we had indeed fallen behind our colleagues in the private sector," she said.
She criticised "ill-informed media comment".
"To read some of the rubbish on the subject from various sources, one might think that we were engaged in some devilish plot rather than providing a rational means for the determination of public service pay."
