The six executive directors of The Irish Times Ltd and the non-executive chairmen of The Irish Times Ltd and The Irish Times Trust earned a combined €2.8 million last year.

This was a decline of 12.3 per cent on the previous year's figure, which included a once-off pension charge of €564,000 in respect of a retired director. On a like-for-like basis total remuneration rose by €168,000.

The €2.8 million total is made up of salaries of €1.611 million, performance-related pay of €362,000, benefits in kind of €123,000 and pension contributions of €712,000.

The two highest paid directors are the editor of The Irish Times, Geraldine Kennedy, and the managing director of The Irish Times Ltd, Maeve Donovan. Their salaries at 31st December 2005 were €350,000.

The salary of the deputy managing director, the late Michael Austen, was €261,000, while the then finance director Liam Kavanagh earned €209,000 (Mr Kavanagh is now deputy managing director). The deputy editor of the newspaper, Paul O'Neill, has a salary of €158,000 and managing editor Eoin McVey's was €134,000.

Non-executive chairman Brian Patterson was paid a salary of €101,000 and the salary of Prof David McConnell, the chairman of The Irish Times Trust - who also is a non-executive director of The Irish Times Ltd- was €48,000. Directors received board fees averaging €12,954.