Sir, – Your columnist David McWilliams ("High-paid bosses make us all feel small", Opinion & Analysis, May 12th) is right to highlight the growing wage gap between Irish executives and average earners, not least as a sign of a deepening and troubling inequality in our society.
That is precisely why the Irish Congress of Trade Unions now publishes an annual survey of executive pay and the growing earnings gap: Because We're Worth It – the Truth About CEO Pay in Ireland.
First published in 2017, our annual survey appears every January and focuses on the major companies quoted on the stock exchange. Copies are available on the Congress website.
While such studies are the norm across many EU countries, they are the exception here and the issue is deserving of far more attention, particularly given the explosion in executive pay evident in recent years and noted by your columnist.
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Are they worth it? As the late John Kenneth Galbraith noted: “The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.” – Yours, etc,
Dr PETER RIGNEY,
EILEEN SWEENEY,
(Report authors),
Irish Congress of
Trade Unions,
Parnell Square,
Dublin 1.