The individual pay of Ornua’s top executives should be revealed, Jackie Cahill, Fianna Fail TD, has said following the announcement that Ornua paid its executives €9.2m since 2013.
Speaking to Agriland, the Tipperary TD and former Vice Chairman of the Irish Dairy Board (now Ornua), said that the rate of pay that Ornua’s top executives are being paid is “out-of-bounds”.
“You can’t explain [this level of pay] to a farmer when he’s losing his tonsils… for farmers on the ground it’s hard to accept.
Farmers will find it difficult to swallow as they’re losing money while these executives are being paid these amounts.
Furthermore, Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has said that “dairy farmers who are struggling to make ends meet are bewildered and outraged by news of the huge pay packages being enjoyed by the top nine executives at Ornua”.
Fitzmaurice has said that it is also significant that yesterday’s figures did not specify what each director was paid which is unacceptable to tens of thousands of farmers who contribute to the running of Ornua.
“It must also be remembered that thousands of farmers invested heavily in their dairy operations hoping that the scrapping of the milk quota would boost demand but instead prices have hit the floor and many are struggling to keep their business afloat.”
In this context salaries to the top executives of over half a million euro per year are very hard to take for hard pressed farmers in the industry and they must be reviewed immediately.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin Agriculture spokesperson Martin Ferris has said that the news of the bonuses was hard to take in the middle of such a crisis for dairy farmers struggling to keep their heads above water.
“There is no one saying at all that anyone has done anything wrong, but I know that if I was fielding calls from the bank and selling my milk for less than it is taking me to produce it, I would be very angry at such a bonanza for the bosses of a dairy co-op.
“Ornua has suspended the levy on farmers which it charges for promoting Irish dairy produce abroad and they did this because of the crisis in which Irish dairy farmers are engulfed due to dropping prices.
“In those circumstances, paying directors’ fees of over half a million euro and €4,400,000 in executives’ remuneration seems excessive,” he said.
A statement from the company said that as a global, privately owned, commercial business with sales of €2.5 billion in 2015, attracting and retaining talented staff is of strategic importance to Ornua.
“Accordingly, Executive and Board remuneration, which is performance related and benchmarked against industry peers, is agreed and overseen by its Remuneration Committee with support from Independent Professional Advisors,” it said.
Earlier this week, Ornua’s 2015 annual results revealed that it paid out €9.2m in directors fees and global executive pay over the last two years.
Executive pay in 2014 stood at €4.8m and decreased to €4.4m in 2015. Meanwhile, the 14 directors on the board of the company received €509,000 last year between them.
It is the first time that the remuneration details of the executive pay has been published by Ornua.
Speaking following the announcement of the annual results, Ornua Chairman, Aaron Forde, said that “under accounting rules, you just have to give one total, but we’ve broken it out between directors and executives… we have gone beyond the bare requirements”.
We have a remuneration committee that deals with all these matters… there are frequent reports from the remunerations committee back to the board.
“We’re the only co-op in Europe to reveal their directors’ fees,” Forde said.