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HUNDREDS OF THE country’s top-level bankers at AIB and EBS, Permanent TSB and IBRC earn salaries in excess of €100,000, according to information released in the Dáil.
In response to a question Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesperson, the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan confirmed that 1,065 top-level bankers were taking home basic salaries over €100,000.
Figures provided by Noonan show that, at AIB and EBS, 804 employees earn basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; 45 employees earn between €200,000 – €299,000; and 12 employees earn more than €300,000.
At Permanent TSB a total of 52 people earn basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; seven employees earn between €200,000 – €299,000; and two employees earn more than €300,000.
Finally, at IBRC, 159 employees earn basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; 16 employees earn between €200,000 – €299,000; and eight employees earn more than €300,000.
The basic salaries of employees do not take into account other remuneration factors – such as pension contributions, subscriptions, health insurance or company cars.
The Minister also provided figures from 2008 , which showed that in 2008 at AIB 956 employees earned basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; 71 employees earned between €200,000 – €299,000; and 16 employees earned more than €300,000.
At Permanent TSB in 2008, employees earned basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; 71 employees earned between €200,000 – €299,000; and 16 employees earned more than €300,000.
At IBRC in 2008, 155 employees earned basic salaries of between €100,000 – €199,000; 28 employees earned between €200,000 – €299,000; and nine employees earned more than €300,000.
A spokesperson for AIB told TheJournal.ie that an internal review of pay levels was currently taking place.
Bank of Ireland has yet to supply the information requested.
Deputy Michael McGrath pointed out that these salary levels had been confirmed against the backdrop of thousands of ordinary bank employees facing redundancy over the coming months, while many others had already lost their jobs.
“Despite the substantial pay cuts that have been imposed on the public sector and in many parts of the private sector, the country’s top bankers have remained immune from the effects of our economic problems,” he said. “Incredibly, there have been no reductions in basic pay across the main Irish banks despite the devastating impact they have had on the economy.”
The National Treasury Management Agency, on behalf of the Department of Finance, began conducting a review of pay at the banks in which the State has a stake last April.
Noonan revealed in February that he was considering bringing in “outside expertise” to examine how he can cut the salaries of senior staff.
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Outrageous
Have 16 bankers read this article?
”Top” Bankers
Ha Ha Ha
”Top” Bankers
More like greedy, idiot, corrupt low lifes, that destroy
people’s lives,
people’s futures
and people’s countries.
Disgusting theft!!
This is filthy!!
A lot of the thug bankers I know cant read Donal and they can’t count either.
Top bankers mi ……
100grand for destroyin peoples life
I know were to stick ma vote
A alcoholic homeless person couldn’t have done a worse job than Irish bankers. They only need a few cans not 100k
So IRBC (formerly Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide) and AIB the poster boys of Irish banking have about 1000 employees earning more than 100k a year. Given that the state is picking up the tab, is this a joke?
Rewarded for driving the country into the ground!
This will probably get me loads of verbal attacks from people on here but we do need to apply a little balance to this article. The reason it was posted was to inflame your ire and make you react.
Not everyone who works in banks or in the public service is to blame for this mess. This is something I have learned to appreciate from reading some of the comments from others on here regarding financial services and the public service.
There are key decisions makers in every organisation that have the strategic sanction to change policy, make investments, approve property purchases and lend funds that have over extended these organisations to the point of collapse. Its like saying that every German person was responsible for the genocide of six million jews or that every Japanese person is responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbour.
Just because they have a large salary does not mean they were responsible for the collapse. They might well have an infrastructure job or an IT job that had little or nothing to do with policy decisions regarding funds, lending, property or borrowing.
There are contractual laws surrounding salary entitlements and you can’t just slash everyones salary just because they earn a certain amount. Balance and perspective has to be brought into this.
I agree that there are probably quite a few in the banks that should not be earning ridiculous amounts and there should be a cap on salaries and bonus to discourage incentive driven decision making as it never encourages the right behaviours. If people are to be incentivised then it has to drive the right behaviour surrounding better judgement, quality of compliance and what is right for the customer…as well as the shareholders (us) and the balance sheet.
There is a voice inside me that feels outrage when I read about some of the decisions taken by a very small group of people but painting “everyone” with the same brush will not achieve anything other than to direct hatred and bile towards those who had little or no knowledge of what would transpire. I am sure there are plenty of people in the banks who are just as disgusted as everyone else about how this has turned out.
Particularly the thousands being made redundant.
Hear, hear. The lynch-mob mentality of some of the Journal’s readership beggars belief whenever anything related to bankers or Fianna Fail is published.
But the lynch mob mentality would not exist (or would not be as prevalent) if those responsible for wrong doing were at the very least on trial by now. It exist because of the utter failure of the justice system to deal with it.
Hear
Hear
Grant
Now let these corrupt institutions go bust like the rest of us have to do in The Real World
let us jail their criminal bosses
and free ourselves, our children and our grandchildren from these Vermin’s Gambling Debts!
Well said Grant… while I’m sure some of the salaries are not justifiable, the same brush can’t be used to paint everyone that works in the banking sector.
I have to say some of the grovelling staff are just as bad as their bosses/ captives.
Would your salary really mean that much to you, that you would cheat your customers and steal their homes for a token commission from a boss that doesn’t give a damn about you?
Well as the Aussies say
”There isn’t enough room up the boss’s ass for everyone”
Seriously it’s a joke what they’re being paid!!
As was pointed out by Shane Ross a lot of the boys who drove us off the cliff are still feasting off the carcass now this government has failed in holding anyone accountable how can anything change the political system is simply a glorified mafia game for those in power
Let’s be clear about this! The politicians In Government are happy enough to let high powered bankers reap these salaries because they’re all part of the same gang! The politicians in Government also know that we the Irish people haven’t got the balls to do anything about it! If the truth needs telling, then it’s an absolute fact that the Irish working class are an affront to the great people that fought and died for the very conditions that the same working class enjoy today! Ashamed and embarrassed is what I am today!
Shane “make Seany the minister for finance” Ross??
I’m not going against the grain just for the sake of it but it really isn’t that simple. Bankers is too broad a term for these employees earning in excess of €100k. When you take into account Currency Traders, Branch Managers, Dept Heads, Economists, Senior Accountants etc. The salaries don’t seem that huge compared to other International banking institutions. To attract the best international talent the salaries need to be competitive…
I’m sorry but I’m sick and tired of that old chestnut being rolled out ‘Need to pay to attract the best talent’. I have seen nor heard any demonstration of said talent. It is the same old shite they roll out to explain busting the pay cap for ‘advisors’ citing what they could earn in the ‘private sector’. Well I’m sorry but if they are that good let’s see them get a job elsewhere, and I don’t see a queue of other banks trying to steal our under remunerated ‘Bankers’.
You are of course correct but the usual ‘burn the bondholder’ armchair economists who frequent this website will disagree with you.
€100k? Not a massive salary for most senior banking positions so get over it.
Hear hear Steve, these exorbitant salaries at the top are defended constantly in those terms, across different sectors, be it politics, banking, RTE, consultants etc.
The levels of pay are totally out of sync with reality in these so called “times of austerity”.
What’s the betting you won’t see the troika putting any of the select few under financial pressure? Only the electorate can do that and we are well on our way to losing even that option.
Well we certainly haven’t attracted the best talented financial employees have we… Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place!
And this is without their bonsues, a figure that more often than not dwarfs their original salary. Bunch of shysters.
You pay peanuts you get monkeys. You pay 100,000 you get monkeys. No, wait….???!!!!
This is outrageous . A Joke, a laugh? These people who get paid astronomical salaries plus expenses no doubt to do WHAT ? Destroy our economy , drive people ,no not people, families into poverty. It is disgraceful .
only one comment needed here—– Vomiting (known medically as emesis and informally as throwing up and by a number of other terms) is the forceful expulsion of the contents of one’s stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose…….
I’d suggest that most people posting comments here haven’t the slightest idea how banks actually work, nor on the level of qualifications and expertise required to run them day to day. I am not for one moment attempting to deny that banks were behind the troubles now faced by Ireland, but let’s be a bit sensible and not label all ‘bankers’ (economists, actuaries, legal counsel, IT staff, traders etc) as bastards etc.
we’ve all got a tad bit of ”tunnel vision” going on here your point is valid but hmmmm says the ever so slightly bitter chick who is punished by paying more
Simon, don’t be so condescending. Lots of people know full well how banks work. Do you? Can you justify the outright fraud that is Fractional Reserve lending? Can you explain how, when banks are allowed to create the money they loan that they still can’t turn a profit? Our modern banking system is a scam, pure and simple. It is a Ponzi scheme just waiting to collapse.
Shower of uncaring bastards
How can these people still be getting paid these amounts? how can they still be in a job? any other country with some backbone would of sorted this out years ago!!
It takes a country like Iceland to do what is needed with respect to the banks. Irish politicians lack the necessary spinal material to do the same.
And here was me thinking the headline meant it was Bank Managers Europe-Wide, shocking stuff, I have 83 cent in my pocket since yesterday.
important to note: this is basic pay – this doesn’t include car allowance, expenses, pension, gym membership – if you include all of that, the numbers would be different
They’d make you sick! The amount they get is disgusting and wrong!!!! Useless shower of b****rds!!!!!
Is it just me or are all the figures in the article wrong? lol it’s €100,000 not €100,00 lol
thank god someone said it lol
the bigger picture, lads , typos, don’t affect my finances the way the banker messed up, open ur eyes
look at the bigger picture here, lads, typo’s in the paper never messed up my finances the way the bankers did, stop looking for mole hills to mock, and pick on the mountains
Politician’s and banker’s…NO difference, rotten b*****ds!
sick stomach churning information, and the low earners of this country have to pay off wanky bankers fu_ck ups from thier greed during the tiger years, i believe these greedy bankes should be taxed to the point that turn thier large salaries into what the unemploied have to survive on, and then they might feel the guilt and understand the mess that they have left 10′s of thousands of unemploied and low earners in
It’s the word “earn” that really stings!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I agree with Grant, not all financial advisers assisted with inflating the balloon! there were a number of contributors, The Regulator should have been reading the writing on the wall, and not the reports he was getting from the banks. The Europen lenders who swelled the banks with short term cheap money because they could not or were reluctant to lend it to their own! and the top bankers who were so intoxicated with their own self interest ( Bonuses) and lastly Customers, who wanted to be millionaires, and gambaled away tomorrows income on sch a short term gamble!
vote yes for more banking jobs!!
pass the treaty and the workforce at the ECB thru the ESM will swell!!!
Those poor hard pressed bankers! How can they live in such a paltry income?
The bankers pay should be cut down substantially and so should their pensions as the country is meant to be broke. That goes for the politicians too.
Given their performance and the nature of their business model, they should be on minimum wage, if employed at all.
Ah ya left out the earn “just” 100 grand per year
”Hey guys I know I am going to get a lot of red thumbs for this”
”But I thought I would bring a bit of balance to the debate”
Now let us
IMMEDIATELY JAIL EVERY LAST ONE OF THE B##TARDS FOR LIFE!!
TAKE EVERY THING OF THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES!!
BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY WOULD TO DO TO US!!
Sometimes things that ”we can’t do without” are really not that necessary.
Maybe we just don’t need bankers anymore?
Sorry typo
BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY WOULD DO TO US!!
I have to agree with @Sasha Musgrave. In a decent society, with integrity and fairness, anyone who neglects their duties should be let go. For them to be earning any more than an middle-upper public sector wage is unjust. Having a job, considering the scale of their errors, is unjust. It is outrageous that they earn six figure basic salaries. However, we all know this. We also know that the government don’t care that they unjustly earn so much, otherwise they would have enforced cuts. The question is: Can we do anything about it?
Bankers hand on Ireland’s testicles, pls cough.
Take that Eire, they destroyed our economy and haven’t been affected one bit. Good ol Ireland.
So let me get this right. These people have a shooting fish in a barrel business model, as they create the money they lend out of nothing (Google Fractional Reserve System if you don’t believe me), yet they still fail to make this scam work, so come with their begging bowls to the state, who in turn foist their gambling debts on the taxpayer. And, to boot, they get paid handsomely for it. They would do well to remember what befell greedy bankers during the French Revolution, after all, it was the greed of bankers that brought France to the point where the revolution was inevitable.
have your say