Continental Group chief gets €240,000 bonus
Irish Ferries last year cut hundreds of jobs from its Irish base to employ fewer and cheaper workers from overseas to run its passenger ferry division.
According to Irish Continental Group’s annual report for 2005, Mr Rothwell was paid a total of €664,000. He received a basic salary of €377,000 and a performance bonus of €242,000. He also received other pay and perks worth €45,000. Mr Rothwell’s overall pay was the same as in 2004.
The report also shows that the number of share options held by Mr Rothwell increased by 50,000 to 550,000.
Irish Continental’s finance director, Gearóid O’Dea, was the next higher paid director. He received an €11,000 increase in his remuneration package to €318,000. Mr O’Dea was paid a salary of €233,000 and netted a bonus of €62,000. He also received other payments of €23,000.
Tony Kelly, the marketing director of Irish Ferries, got a €6,000 pay rise to €250,000. His pay package was made up of basic salary of €171,000, a bonus of €60,000 and other benefits worth €19,000.
Irish Continental chairman John B McGuckian, who also sits on the boards of AIB, Unidare and Ulster Television pocketed €90,000 in fees for the part-time role - €17,000 more than in 2004.
Peter Crowley, who is also the chief executive of the Bank of Ireland-owned IBI, was paid €40,000 as a non-executive director, the same amount received by the only other director Bernard Somers.
Overall, the directors of Irish Continental were paid a total of €1.54 million, up from €1.46m in 2004.
Profits at Irish Continental dived to just under €20m last year. The company also took a €29m hit to cover the cost of the drastic restructuring.
Sailings at Irish Ferries were crippled for days as staff protested at the jobs cuts and changed to working conditions. The company decided to axe all 543 jobs on Irish Ferries’ routes and employ cheaper workers.
In the annual report, Mr Rothwell said the outlook for the company this year is mixed.
He said: “In the passenger market there is evidence that the competitive threat of low fare short-haul airlines is having a dampening effect on demand for ferry travel.”
