IRISH Permanent chief executive, Mr Roy Douglas, took a £51,500 drop in pay last year to £269,503, after the former building society cut his annual bonus.

His bonus, which is based on the company achieving certain new business and profit targets, was cut from £86,000 in 1994 to £26,500, according to the annual report, bringing his total pay down from £321,000 in the previous year to £269,503 in 1995.

The report, issued yesterday, showed the Irish Permanent paid a further £71,836 in pension contributions for its top executive, bringing his total renumeration package to more than £340,000, down from £392,000 the previous year.

Paid a year in arrears, the £26,500 bonus relates to the group's performance in 1994 on an undisclosed set of performance targets fixed annually across the range of the group's business.

Commenting on the sharp drop in bonus payments to Mr Eouglas in 1995, a spokesman for the Irish Permanent said its targets were "very ambitious" rising in line with the group's rate of growth.

The group announced a 20.6 per cent rise in profits last year to £42.4 million, reported strong growth in lending and a sharp increase in contributions from its subsidiary companies.

As the highest paid executive director, Mr Douglas was paid a salary of £205,020 in 1995. In addition he earned fees of £20,400 and received benefits worth £17,563, plus the £26,500 bonus for 1994.

The group's two other top executive directors, Mr Peter Fitzpatrick and Mr Peter Ledbetter, took a similar drop in pay to Mr Douglas, sharing a total remuneration, excluding pensions, of £403,606 in 1995, down from £503,000 in the previous year.

They shed salaries of £285,604 and together earned fees of £40,800 and benefits in kind of £38,802, according to the report. Their combined bonus amounted to £38,400, while the group also paid pension contributions of £105,409 for them.

Irish Permanent non executive chairman, Mr John Bourke, was paid fees of £84,660 last year, according to the report. Its six non executive directors, Mr Brendan Halligan, Mr Richard Hooper, Mr John Keogh, Ms Eileen Lemass, Mr Pat O'Neill and Ms Muriel Scorer, received an average of more than £20,000 each in fees from the group in 1995.

The report also revealed a bonus cash pool of £1.633 million, which, with accrued interest would be distributed between eight of the group's senior management, including three executive directors, in 1997.

Other information detailed in its annual report show the majority of its shareholders had relatively small holdings.

The Irish Permanent showed 88 per cent, or 120,685, of its more than 137,000 shareholders had less than 500 shares.

Around 9 per cent, or 12,308 people have between 500 and 1,000 Irish Permanent shares, according to the report. Larger holdings, of up to 10 million shares are held by the remaining 3 per cent of its shareholders.

These figures showed 95 per cent of Irish Permanent shares were owned by Irish private and institutional investors.