Major pay hikes for CEOs at some of Ireland's top companies

Eight CEOs in the top ten Irish companies took home pay last year that was on average 66 per cent higher than their 2019 pay packages.

Source: peakpx.com

Eight chief executives at Ireland's top ten companies took home nearly double their pre-pandemic pay last year.

The CEOs of Kingspan and Smurfit Kappa saw their pay packages rise by 70% since 2019.

The head of building materials company CRH received €13,900,000 in 2021, which is a new record for the head of a Dublin based company.

Chief Economist with KBC Austin Hughes explains how salaries reached these heights:

"Top management tend to have significant performance-related elements in their contracts, so when companies do well, they tend to be rewarded very handsomely."

However People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barret has described the figures as obscene:

"I don't see how you can really justify people who are earning ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or a hundred times what the average worker [is]."

The hike is in line with a global trend, where the gap between workers and bosses is ever-growing.