Category Archives: Sources

Mary Lou McDonald [SF, Dublin Central] asked Jimmy Deenihan [FG, Kerry North/West Limerick], before his departure from the waterways (and other stuff) department,

… if he will provide in tabular form a list of the annual salaries of the chief executive officers of all non-commercial State sponsored bodies under his remit.

Which he did; you can see it here.

I thought it might be interesting to see how the salaries of the CEOs relate to the numbers of staff and the budgets they control. It’s not easy to compare them. The salary figures are presumably current; the various bodies offer, on their websites, accounts for years ending anywhere from 31 December 2011 to [well done, the National Concert Hall] 31 December 2013. In some cases I could find no proper accounts, but at least the Crawford Art Gallery gave a figure for its income, which is more than the Chester Beatty Library did [as far as I could see].

There were several other minor difficulties, but the big problem is that some bodies distribute grants to others, so their business is processing money: as a result, their income (usually from, or mostly from, the state) is higher than it would be for non-grant-distributing bodies. I have made no attempt to allow for that.

To make comparisons easier, I divided the number of staff in each body by the CEO’s salary (converted to euro where necessary) and multiplied the result by 1000 to remove leading zeroes. That tells you how many employees you get managed for each euro of CEO salary. Waterways Ireland is by far the biggest organisation, but has the second-lowest CEO salary.

Similarly, I divided the organisation’s income by the CEO’s salary to provide a crude measure of how much activity you get for each euro of CEO salary. Bodies dispensing grants look better than they otherwise might using this measure.

This is then a very crude comparison, with many caveats, but I think that Dawn Livingstone of Waterways Ireland is the best-value CEO of those running bodies under the aegis of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

I’m sorry the table spreads so far to the right; I can’t work out how to narrow the column widths.

[1] 41 full time and 7 part time WTEs, according to note 2c to accounts in Arts Council Annual Report 2012

[2] Total income y/e 31 December 2012 from Arts Council Annual Report 2012. €56.6m was dispensed to other bodies in grants

[3] Excluding volunteers and vacant posts shown in the Staff List in Report of the Trustees Chester Beatty Library 2012

[4] The annual report for 2012 available here http://www.cbl.ie/About-Us/The-Chester-Beatty-Library/Reports.aspx does not include accounts. There is a one-page balance sheet, without the associated notes, from which I am unable to form any idea of the cost of the institution

[5] I am unable to find any accounts on the Crawford Art Gallery’s website http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/aboutus1.html. Its Annual report 2011, the most recent available, says “The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism pay allocation to the Gallery for 2011 was €475,000, while the non-pay allocation was €600,000. The capital allocation for 2011 was €275,000.” I have used the (rounded) sum of the first two figures

[6] Staff Costs and Board Remuneration in Foras na Gaeilge section of The North/South Language Body Annual Report and Accounts for 2011

[7] Total income y/e 31 December 2011 from Foras na Gaeilge section of The North/South Language Body Annual Report and Accounts for 2011

[8] Heritage Council website www.heritagecouncil.ie

[9] Total income y/e 31 December 2013 from Heritage Council Annual Report for 2012

[10] Note 6 to accounts in Annual Report 2011

[11] Sum of total income figures from Capital Income and Expenditure Account and Administration Income and Expenditure Account y/e 31 December 2011 in Annual Report 2011

[12] Note 9 to accounts in Irish Museum of Modern Art Annual Report 2011

[13] Total income y/e 31 December 2011 from Irish Museum of Modern Art Annual Report 2011

[14] Note 2 to accounts in National Concert Hall Annual Report 2013

[15] Gross income y/e 31 December 2013 from National Concert Hall Annual Report 2013

[16] Note 7 to accounts in National Gallery of Ireland Annual Report 2012

[17] Total income y/e 31 December 2012 from National Gallery of Ireland Annual Report 2012

[18] Rounded. From Human resource management and development in National Library of Ireland Annual Report 2011

[19] Total income y/e 31 December 2011 from National Library of Ireland Annual Report 2011

[20] Note 13 to accounts in The National Museum of Ireland Financial Statements for 2011

[21] Total income y/e 31 December 2011 from The National Museum of Ireland Financial Statements for 2011

[22] Údarás na Gaeltachta Annual Report and Accounts 2012

[23] Total income y/e 31 December 2012 from Údarás na Gaeltachta Annual Report and Accounts 2012

[24] Staff Costs and Board Members in Tha Boord O Ulster-Scotch section of The North/South Language Body Annual Report and Accounts for 2011

[25] Total income y/e 31 December 2011 from Tha Boord O Ulster-Scotch section of The North/South Language Body Annual Report and Accounts for 2011

[26] £49,244

[27] Excluding student placements and temporary and agency staff (total 19). Note 4 to accounts in Waterways Ireland Annual Report and Accounts 2012

[28] Total income y/e 31 December 2013 from Waterways Ireland Annual Report and Accounts 2012