A Kerry TD has called for the nearly €92,000 (€91,917) salary increase for the chief executive of the ESB to be re-evaluated.
Deputy Danny Healy Rae says “it is not fair to rise the salary of the chief executive” when electricity charges are going up “day by day”.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Jack Chambers, approved the pay increase for Paddy Hayes on 6 July.
It followed a review of the pay packages of semi-state agency CEOs by the independent Senior Posts Remuneration Committee.
ESB Group’s 2025 Annual Report showed it employed nearly 10,000 people (9,968) and had a pre-tax profit of almost €750 million (€749.7 million), on revenues of almost €6.7 billion (€6.7385 billion).
The semi-state company owns and operates several major subsidiary companies across Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
These include ESB Networks, Electric Ireland, Northern Ireland Electricity Networks, ESB International consultancy, ESB Telecoms, and ESB Generation and Wholesale Markets (ESB GWM) which operates power stations across Ireland and Great Britain, and wholesale electricity trading across the all-island market.
It’s reported that this is the ESB chief executive’s first increase since 2011.
Deputy Danny Healy Rae says he has written to Minister Jack Chambers requesting a re-evaluation of the approved salary increase for the chief executive of the ESB.
He also said, “it is very hard to take for people paying exorbitant prices to ESB [when] many of them [are] struggling to pay their electricity bills.
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities told Radio Kerry that it “does not have a role in setting supplier prices for end consumers”, and that “CEO remuneration is a matter for the shareholder in the case of state-owned utilities”.
Radio Kerry has also contacted ESB Group and the Department of Public Expenditure for comment.