THE STATE'S top public servants shared a €3 million performance bonus last year, with average payments coming to more than €14,000 each.
The scheme applies to 221 senior public servants who received bonus payments ranging from a low of €3,200 to €26,000 for the top performer.
Those who benefited from the bonus scheme are on salaries ranging from €138,683 to €186,891 a year.
The performance awards scheme applies to deputy and assistant secretaries in Government departments and senior figures in the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces.
The performance rating of the individuals was decided on by the secretary generals of each department, who do not themselves qualify for the scheme.
The Government department which benefited most was Foreign Affairs where 48 people shared bonus payments of €656,000. There are far more people on the assistant secretary grade in this department as it was the practice in the past for ambassadors to automatically qualify for the grade.
The Department of Justice came next, with 15 officials sharing €177,000.
In Enterprise and Employment, 14 officials shared €196,000, in Agriculture and Food €180,000 was shared by 13 people, while in Finance the same number of people shared €177,000.
In Education, nine officials shared €134,00, while in Health eight shared €123,000.
In Environment, seven shared €102,000, in the Taoiseach's department six got €62,000 between them and in Transport, the figure was €64,000 for five officials.
The scheme also applied to a number of areas outside Government departments.
In the Revenue Commissioners, 16 people shared €197,000, in the Garda Síochána 15 people shared €185,000 and in the Defence Forces 12 people shared €134,000.
The payments were made on the basis of a report from the Committee for Performance Awards for 2007. It was the sixth annual report of the committee.
The committee is chaired by Ciarán Connolly, secretary general of the public service management division in the Department of Finance.
The other members are Dermot McCarthy, secretary to the Government, Maurice Keane, former chief executive of the Bank of Ireland, David Kingston, the former managing director of Irish Life and Marie O'Connor, a partner in the law firm of McCann Fitzgerald.
The committee presented its report to the Government in April and it was approved by the Cabinet in early summer. Individual departments have paid the bonus to their top staff in recent months.
It applied to 194 senior civil servants and to 15 senior gardaí and 12 members of the Defence Forces.
There was controversy last week when the Health Service Executive announced that it was to pay out bonuses worth a total of €1.4 million to senior staff for their work during 2007.
Those eligible for bonuses under the performance-related award scheme in the health sector are the chief executive, national directors, assistant national directors and hospital network managers.
The scheme, like that in the Civil Service, was introduced on a recommendation of the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector accepted by the Government.
