THE DUBLIN-BASED chief executive of the American Ireland Fund, who stepped down last month, received a salary worth about $800,000 (€590,000) last year.
The board of the charity has since “amicably renegotiated” a new salary package for Kingsley Aikins, who is no longer an employee but remains on as a consultant to the charity, according to a spokesman.
Mr Aikins relocated from the charity’s New York headquarters to Dublin in 2005. A spokesman for the charity said the former chief executive received a basic salary of $320,000 (€240,000) last year, as well as a housing allowance and tax equalisation payments amounting to about $480,000 (€355,000).
The Ireland Funds were founded in 1976 by Sir Anthony O’Reilly and Dan Rooney and have written cheques for $110 million to 1,200 organisations in the last decade alone.
Latest figures show the American Ireland Fund raised $15 million in 2008. Most money is raised from a network of wealthy Irish-Americans or friends of Ireland. It has funded projects ranging from peace and reconciliation initiatives to education and community development on both sides of the Border.
The new chief of the American Ireland Fund, Kieran McLoughlin, said the new salary package for Mr Aikins was aimed at eliminating the relocation and tax equalisation elements.
In his new role as a consultant, Mr Aikins will receive a flat fee of about $325,000 (€240,000).
Mr McLoughlin said the weakening dollar meant the cost of the chief executive’s salary package had increased. He also said the basic salary was almost $100,000 lower than the median salary for top executives at non-for-profits in the US in 2008. “We’ve nothing to hide, the numbers are out there and we are happy to explain them,” he said.
“Mr Aikins’s package was devised by an outside compensation consultant, with advice from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and was passed by the fund’s compensation committee, executive committee and board,” Mr McLoughlin said. Mr Aikins was a “guru of global philanthropy” and had raised unprecedented amounts of money for Irish causes, he added.
Despite the recession, the American Ireland Fund has continued to raise significant sums. It says it is among just 12 per cent of not-for-profits that are expected to report a surplus in 2009.
In Mr McLoughlin’s new role as chief executive – based in New York – he will receive a basic salary in the region of $300,000 (€225,000).