The pay of Ireland’s chief executives rose again last year. In the higher echelons of publicly-quoted companies, where they refer to it as “remuneration”, the average package rose 9.6 per cent to ¤4.79 million, according to an Irish Times survey. The pay of the executives concerned was in some cases more than 300 times the average of those who worked for them.
Only the chief executives of AIB and PTSB were paid less than ¤1 million in 2025, and the former’s package has since been increased above this level after the sale of the final State shares. A number of the higher figures were boosted by stock bonus awards linked to share price performance.
Bosses of publicly quoted companies have long enjoyed rewards which are detached from the normal world of work and reward. In the US, the figures are even higher, with a Wall Street Journal survey showing that average chief executive pay in 2025 in the companies listed on the S&P500 Index was $17.9 million (¤15.7 million). Elon Musk’s Tesla package was valued by the company at $158 billion, though he will only receive the money if targets are met in the years ahead.
These high-flying pay packages are agreed by boards of directors, themselves parts of the gilded world of publicly quoted businesses. The strong performance of share prices in recent years has increased the incentives on offer and highlighted the gaps between top executives and the rest. Given the small number of Irish quoted companies, this may not be as big an issue in Ireland as in the US. But it does provide ballast to arguments for a wealth tax or other tax measures to allow some more of the massive rewards to be redistributed.
RM Block
In Ireland, the world of the publicly quoted company – and the highly paid chiefs of multinational subsidiaries here and partners of professional service firms – is very different to that faced by the thousands of SMEs across the country. Inequality in gross pay is relatively high in Ireland. But those who pay Irish income tax are part of a system which redistributes significantly, leading to less inequality in take-home pay. That said, at the higher level, more taxes on wealth are justified.
