Revealed: Row over €56k bonus at Coillte

COILLTE’S directors argued it would be immoral, unethical, unprofessional and illegal to deny its chief executive a €56,000 bonus earlier this year after the company sanctioned the payment in defiance of ministerial and departmental demands.

The state forestry body decided to sign over the money to chief executive David Gunning at the beginning of this year. In doing so it ended an unseemly two-year row with the Department of Agriculture over this deferred 2008 award.

More recently, the board agreed to pay Mr Gunning a further bonus for his work in 2010, which would have entitled him to a lift of up to €74,000, but he declined to take it.