Boyd Barrett: Executives' Pay in Top Irish Companies is ' absolutely obscene'

People Before Profit, a socialist political party from Ireland, said chief executive officers' salaries have become ' absolutely obscene' following the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight of the 10 top executives in the country now earn almost double what they did before the pandemic.

According to reports, the top ten companies on the Iseq index that have already issued their annual reports for the previous year earn a median of €4.79 million each.

The amount is nearly double the €2.42 million median figure for comparable businesses in 2019.

According to the report, the highest-paid CEO was Albert Manifold, the CEO of construction materials company CRH, who received a total compensation package of €13.9 million last year, up 24% from 2020.

It comes only days after the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released new research revealing that nearly a quarter of full-time workers in Ireland are struggling to make ends meet.

People Before Profit CEO Richard Boyd Barrett said the salaries show the system's disparities on The Pat Kenny Show.

He said, "I think it is obscene that we are talking about an average earning for these executives of €4.7m. One of them, the CRH executive, is getting a €13.9m annual salary while the average worker working for CRH is €48,000. So, the CEO is getting 289 times more than the average worker in the company. I mean, nothing could justify that.”