THE FORMER financial regulator Patrick Neary received a payment of approximately eight months salary – totalling almost €200,000 – for agreeing to retire early.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said the payment had been agreed following independent legal advice and because of Mr Neary’s availability to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority for a period of three months.
As a result, the authority decided to pay “an additional €151,500, equivalent to six months’ remuneration, plus an additional two months’ salary”, Mr Lenihan said in a written reply to a parliamentary question from Labour’s Joan Burton. Mr Neary had two years remaining on his contract when he retired.
This payment totals approximately €200,000, based on Mr Neary’s final salary of €285,341.
As a public servant, he is also entitled to normal Civil Service entitlements which includes the payment of a lump sum amount of 1½ times the final salary, which in Mr Neary’s case is equivalent to €428,000. Mr Neary is also entitled to an annual pension worth half of his final salary, or €142,670.
Mr Neary announced his resignation last month following severe criticism of the authority over its regulation of the banking sector in general and Anglo Irish Bank in particular.
A central criticism was his lack of knowledge of secret loans to former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick at times exceeding €87 million over an eight-year period, which he concealed from the bank’s shareholders and auditors.