Transport boss’s €72,000 for 62 days’ work

BUSINESSMAN Tom Mulcahy, the chairman-designate of the Dublin Transport Authority (DTA), could get paid up to €74,000 for 62 days’ work.

Mr Mulcahy will get €1,000 per day’s work until the DTA is formally established.

He will separately receive an annual payment equating to €2,000 a day for his role as chairman of another State body, the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA).

Mr Mulcahy, former chief executive of the AIB group, was appointed to both roles in February by Transport Minister Martin Cullen.

He succeeded Padraic White as chairman of the RPA, the body responsible for the Luas light-rail network, and will receive an annual stipend of €24,000 for that task.

According to correspondence between the departments of transport and finance, the stipend is “generally regarded as being in respect of one day’s attendance per month”.

This works out as €2,000 for each of the 12 days Mr Mulcahy will be expected to attend over a year.

The DTA, meanwhile, is a new body which will be formally established by legislation later this year.

It will be responsible for all road and rail transport in the greater Dublin area, and will subsume the RPA.

Mr Mulcahy will be chairman of the DTA. In the meantime, as chairman-designate, he has been tasked with putting in place “the necessary organisational arrangements for the new authority”.

Following recommendations by the Department of Transport, the Department of Finance has approved a per diem rate, or daily allowance, of €1,000 for Mr Mulcahy in respect of this role until the DTA is up and running. The per diem rate is subject to a maximum limit of €50,000, or 50 days’ payment, between now and September 30.

The Department of Finance has proposed that the arrangement be reviewed at the end of September “having regard to progress in respect of establishment of the DTA on a statutory basis”.

Taken together, the two roles could earn Mr Mulcahy up to €74,000 for 62 days’ work.

The correspondence between the departments was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

It stresses that the €24,000 RPA stipend is the standard annual fee payable to chairpersons of Category 2 State bodies, including An Post, the VHI and more.

The €1,000 per diem rate in respect of the DTA, meanwhile, is in line with allowances paid to previous chairs of transport bodies.

Mr Mulcahy was previously chairman of Aer Lingus. He resigned that position in 2004 when it emerged that he was among a number of AIB executives who had unspecified “tax issues” in the 1990s.

He later confirmed he had made a voluntary disclosure to the Revenue Commissioners in 2003. However, he stressed following his appointment in February that he was tax compliant.