Eircom boss got €1.2m last year

EIRCOM chief executive Phil Nolan was paid €1.2 million last year, it emerged yesterday.

Dr Nolan, who joined the company three years ago, received a basic salary of e€707,000 and a bonus of more than €510,000, the company’s annual report for 2004/2005 shows.

Eircom’s chief financial officer Philip Lynch was paid a total of €781,324. This package was made up of a basic salary of €466,400, a bonus of €268,180 and other perks worth €46,744.

Cathal Magee, Eircom’s retail director, netted a total of €775,490.

Tony O’Reilly, the company’s chairman, received €132,500 in fees for the part-time role.

Con Scanlon, the former head of the Communications Workers’ Union, and Eircom’s deputy chairman, was paid €106,000.

The company’s seven other non-executive directors, who include the C&C boss Maurice Pratt and stockbroker John Conroy, received €75,000 each.

The total pay for the board was €4.07m, down from €6.77m the previous year. In 2003/2004, several directors received one-off bumper payments for the smooth flotation of the company on the stock exchange.

In May, Eircom reported pre-tax profits of €179m on turnover of €1.6 billion.

In the annual report, Dr O’Reilly said the company was eager to get back into the mobile phone market but did not say if the company was still in the running for Meteor, which is on the market.

Dr O’Reilly also criticised the telecoms regulator Comreg, claiming the watchdog was holding back investment in the industry.

He said it was “beyond comprehension why a cable into a house is unregulated, a mobile signal is unregulated, a satellite service is unregulated but a copper wire is regulated beyond an inch of its life.”