No wonder nine staff at the NTMA left in the month of January 2013 alone. That’s nearly 2% of the 500 staff in the organization which houses a number of agencies under its umbrella, the main agency being NAMA. We learned this week that NAMA has not paid, and will not be paying any bonuses to its 220-odd staff for their work in 2012.
In the Dail this week, the Independent TD for Donegal South West Thomas Pringle asked Minister for Finance Michael Noonan about bonuses paid to staff in organizations under his auspices. This is what the Minister responded in respect of the NTMA and you can find the full parliamentary question and response here. It is understood from NAMA that no bonuses have or will be paid to staff for 2012 and the payments “to employees on lower salaries who contributed significant additional work hours” were not NAMA employees but back office staff working at the NTMA.
Minister Noonan also reminded us of the salaries of the three CEOs in the NTMA and the 15% waiver each of the CEOs has agreed to in 2012. You will all be familiar with John Corrigan and Brendan McDonagh, but it was revealed that the CEO of the National Development Finance Agency, was paid €297,000. How many of you would be able to recognize that CEO – Brian Murphy?
“Information in respect of performance related payments made to National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) staff is set out in the table below. All National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) staff are NTMA employees and are included in the table below.
The NTMA employed a total of 500 staff as at the end of 2012.
In addition the NTMA made total payments of €170,364 to 74 employees and €140,500 to 59 employees in relation to 2011 and 2012 respectively. These payments were to employees on lower salaries who contributed significant additional work hours. The NTMA does not have formal overtime payment arrangements in place for staff.
The remuneration details of the chief executives of the NTMA, National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) and NAMA are published in the annual reports of the relevant bodies. The remuneration of the chief executives consists of basic salary, taxable benefits and a performance-related payment.The remuneration details for 2012 are as follows:
The chief executives agreed to waive 15% of their salaries following a request by the Minister for Finance and the adjustment in each case is reflected in the above figures. The chief executives waived any consideration for performance-related pay in 2012 (as they did previously in 2011 and 2010).
The chief executives’ pension entitlements do not extend beyond the standard entitlements in the model public sector defined benefit superannuation scheme.”
NAMA Wine Lake 
These sort of situations reveal the difficulty of having any performance related element in the public sector. Any ‘bonus’ looks like ‘ice cream’ on the top of the ordinary salary. So we end up having non-performance related compensation instead.
@NWL
re: National Development Finance Agency
http://www.ndfa.ie/home.html
“The National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) was established on 1 January 2003. One of its principal functions is to advise State Authorities on the optimal financing of priority public investment projects by applying commercial standards in evaluating financial risks and costs. The NDFA’s overriding objective is to maximise value for money for the Exchequer.”
I assume therefore that the NDFA Chief Executive was the first person into the room on Sept 28/29th 2008, and at all subsequent interventions by the State!
@Joseph, this one might you smile (or not)
Brian Murphy was appointed CEO of the NDFA on 12th January 2009.
He would have had insight into the problems at Anglo because….wait for it, wait for it…..he was Director of Group Treasury at Anglo until June 2006 when he left because of what were reported to be “cultural” things
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/treasury-chief-murphy-leaves-anglo-irish-26378346.html
He joined Anglo in 2003 so had four years senior experience of the bank at the time of his resignation. He joined the NTMA in 2007, so you would have thought that he would have had quite a good insight into the relevant considerations before the State invested in the disastrous guarantee.
Maybe he should be asked.
Maybe he should also be asked why the four years at Anglo has been excised from his bio above!