Sir Anthony O'Reilly was paid €867,000 last year as executive chairman of Independent News & Media. He was the highest paid of the media company's nine executive directors who shared over €4.5 million in salaries, fees and pension contributions. Sir Anthony is the controlling shareholder in the group with a 27 per cent stake.

The company's annual report - which was released over the bank holiday weekend - also gives details of the remuneration paid by the company to its 17 non-executive directors, which totalled €1.1 million. In total, the firm's 26 directors shared €5.6 million.

Sir Anthony received no pension contributions and his salary of €800,000 dwarfed that of the next highest paid director, Mr Jim Parkinson, whose salary was €472,000 rising to €604,000 with fees and pension contributions. Mr Parkinson is the group finance director.

When pensions and fees are taken into account the best remunerated director - after Sir Anthony - was Mr Brendan Hopkins, who is the chief executive of Independent News & Media (UK). He earned €788,000.

The executive directors were also granted options over 2.2 million shares at €1.57 per share. Sir Anthony received options of one million shares, which would net him over €580,000 based on last Friday's closing price of of €2.15 per share. When the in-the-money value of the options is taken along with his salary and the dividends on his 154 million shares, Sir Anthony made over €13 million from the group last year.

Turnover during the year was flat at €1.34 billion although earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation grew to €284 million from €268 million. The company share price fell to €2.10 from €2.90 during the 12 months while earnings per share fell from 16 cents to 12.5 cents. In his chairman's statement, Sir Anthony said that despite the unusual difficulties of 2001 the group had performed well.

Six other executive directors got options over 200,000 shares each. They include Mr Parkinson, Mr Hopkins and Sir Anthony's son Gavin, who is chief operating officer. Mr Vincent Crowley, the chief executive of the Irish operation got 200,000 options as did Mr John Saunders the chief executive of Independent's Australian associate. Mr Ivan Fallon, the chief executive of Independent's South African operations also got 200,000 options.

The biggest beneficiary among the non-executive directors was Mr Liam Healy, the former chief executive of the group who received €233,000, followed by Mr Ben Bradlee, a former editor of the Washington Post, who earned €173,000. Mr C.U. Daly, the executive director of the John F Kennedy Library Foundation, was paid €114,000 and Mr Vincent Ferguson, who is the senior independent director, was paid €85,000. Mr Jim McCarthy, another long serving director, was paid €32,000. The payments were in addition to board fees ranging from €19,000 to €41,000. The annual report does not detail the services carried out in return for the additional remuneration.

Three of the executive directors - Mr Hopkins, Mr Parkinson and Mr Fallon - were also paid for their roles at iTouch, an associate company. Mr Parkinson and Mr Hopkins both received €40,000 while Mr Fallon - who is the non-executive chairman of iTouch - received €137,000. Mr Fallon also earned €479,000 in fees, salary and pension in his role as chief executive of the company's South African operation. Sir Anthony's son, Gavin, earned €440,000 last year while chief executive of the Irish operation.