Financial regulator is paying two chief executive salaries

THE FINANCIAL Regulator has been paying two chief executive’s salaries of €260,000 a year since Patrick Neary announced his resignation earlier this month.

Consumer director Mary O’Dea, appointed acting chief executive after Mr Neary’s announcement, is also being paid a chief executive’s salary, a spokeswoman for the regulator has confirmed.

The spokeswoman said Ms O’Dea, whose normal salary is about €180,000, was doing the chief executive’s job in addition to her role as consumer director.

Mr Neary, who is due to step down at the end of the month, will receive a lump sum of €390,000 and an annual pension of €130,000 as part of his retirement package. This is in line with normal Civil Service entitlements accruing after 40 years’ service, which include a lump sum amount to one-and-a-half-times a person’s salary.

The regulator, known formally as the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, has been heavily criticised over its regulation of the banking sector, and in particular, about its lack of knowledge of the secret loans totalling €87 million to Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick, which ultimately led to the bank’s nationalisation.

Mr Neary announced his intention to retire two years early on January 9th, just after a report blamed an internal communications breakdown in the regulator’s office for leaving him unaware of the loans.

In his resignation statement, he said he was not told of the loans in early 2008 and added that there had been no “oral, written or e-mail escalation” of the matter until it was raised by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan last December 10th.

Pending appointment of a successor, the chairman of the regulator, Jim Farrell, is to take on an expanded executive role at the body, Mr Lenihan has said.

The 2007 annual report of the regulator gives the chief executive’s salary as €260,857.

The Financial Regulator has a staff of 380.