When two large and very similar banking organisations are merging, there is inevitably some tension between senior executives who are effectively competing for the top banking job.

And that was apparently the case when Irish Life & Permanent took over TSB and decided to merge the two group's retail banking operations. That meant Billy Kane from the IL&P side was competing with TSB's Harry Lorton for the chief executive's job at the merged operation that has now been rebranded as Permanent TSB.

The situation sorted itself out when Billy Kane retired from the Irish Life board in May last year, just 11 days after Harry Lorton was elevated to the boardroom table, an outcome that meant that David Went was not faced with the unpleasant prospect of telling one of them that he was not getting the top banking job.

But both Billy Kane and Harry Lorton have done rather well out the denouement.

The Irish Life annual report shows that Harry Lorton picked up €358,000 for his eight months last year on the Irish Life board - €185,000 in salary and €160,000 in bonus. That works out at €437,000 for a full year and it's pretty safe to assume that's an awful lot more than Harry was picking up as chief executive of the State-owned TSB.

But Billy Kane did not leave Irish Life empty-handed. Apart from the €190,000 salary and bonus he got for less than four months work, Billy also got a golden handshake - compensation for loss of office in officialese - of almost €358,000, while another €222,580 was paid into his pension plan.