The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, is to meet senior officials of the Stock Exchange today to discuss the disclosure of directors remuneration. Ms Harney has been pressing the exchange for some time to oblige public companies to reveal the salaries, bonuses and other remuneration of each individual executive director.
While this has been strongly resisted by some of the public companies, it now appears inevitable that the exchange will shortly agree and introduce rules similar to those applying in the UK.
Ms Harney has argued that shareholders in public companies have a right to know the remuneration package of each director. At the moment public companies are only obliged to publish a total figure and do not have to break down each individual director's pay.
One compromise which has been mooted is that public companies would be obliged to publish the pay level of their chief executive separately and then publish a composite figure for all the other executive directors.
However, it appears likely at this stage that Ms Harney will seek to have all the information published and will threaten to introduce legislation if the exchange does not comply voluntarily by altering its rules.
