Shortly before 6pm on a dark winter evening in January last year, a car swerved and crashed into two other vehicles on Anglesea Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.

It was driven by Mark Foley, chief executive of the national grid company EirGrid, who was arrested by gardaí and later prosecuted. The case was subsequently dismissed but he resigned from his post in April.

Unlikely as it seems, the incident had reverberations not just within the company but on the Government’s delicate structure for dealing with top-level pay in commercial State companies.

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Apart from running the Government, Ministers are shareholders in a host of companies that own and operate everything from airports to power stations, health insurers to railways.

These are commercial operations which, in many cases, compete in the market to secure their top executives. They have for years operated under – and in several instances chafed against – austerity-era restrictions on top-level pay.

In 2011, the then minister for public expenditure Brendan Howlin introduced, with some exceptions, a general pay cap of €250,000 for the chief executives.

Some pay rises were approved on a case-by-case basis. But several companies believed the rules placed them in a straitjacket. Performance bonuses were banned, while fixed-term contracts frequently meant chief executives having to leave after a maximum of seven years.

In a booming economy, State company boards began to push against these restrictions. But Ministers, perhaps fearful of claims of pay bonanzas, were cautious.

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In March last year, a few weeks after the Ballsbridge crash, the Government established a new Senior Posts Remuneration Committee (SPRC) chaired by chartered accountant Maeve Carton, who is a governor of The Irish Times Trust. Its first task was to review chief executive pay rates in the commercial State companies.

Boards who had been pressing for new top-level pay structures were told they should wait for the SPRC process to play out.

But the resignation of Foley as EirGrid chief executive set in train circumstances that were to lead to challenges to the Government’s plans.

As EirGrid set about finding a replacement, its chairman Brendan Tuohy told the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in June 2024 that the salary of €250,000 – which had been increased from €200,000 in May of the previous year – was an “inadequate level to attract the type of candidate that we would consider the role requires”.

The then minister Eamon Ryan backed increasing the EirGrid chief executive’s pay, telling Paschal Donohoe, then minister for public expenditure, that the company played a critical role and was “fundamental” to climate targets. Donohoe agreed to €300,000.

The decision to sanction the rise outside of the SPRC process did not go unnoticed.

The EirGrid role was filled by the chief executive at another State-owned commercial company, Gas Networks Ireland (GNI), who at the time had a salary of €225,000.

This created a vacancy at GNI and in January this year its board contacted Minister for Housing James Browne seeking an increase. Browne wrote to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) backing a higher salary, emphasising that the remuneration of the EirGrid boss had been adjusted before the SPRC group had issued recommendations.

The previous October, the board of another State commercial company, Bord na Móna, had written to Ryan seeking higher pay for its chief executive Tom Donnellan, paid €225,000 already – later judged a “significant enhancement” to the chief executive’s terms by DPER. The details of the pay terms in place at Bord na Móna were to cause considerable alarm in DPER.

Around the same time the Department of Transport had sought approval to recruit a new chief executive for Irish Rail on the existing pay rate of €225,000 and use of a car.

This was sanctioned by DPER, but in February this year transport officials reported that the rail company could not secure an appropriate individual within the stipulated terms.

“There was one successful candidate who would not accept a salary that was less than approximately €300,000,” it reported.

DPER officials told their new Minister Jack Chambers in February that the Department of Transport, like GNI and Bord na Móna, had referenced the EirGrid precedent.

They warned that “further requests” were expected this year from other commercial State companies and that the approach taken would “have implications” elsewhere.

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The SPRC reported at the end of March, concluding that the existing system for determining the pay for chief executives was “not optimal in serving the interests of the commercial State bodies, the State or the taxpayer”.

Submissions to the committee reveal the scale of frustration that had been building.

Ryan had told the SPRC “a one-size-fits-all” approach was not working in attracting talent. He wanted greater flexibility for companies on contract length as well as the provision of incremental rises and some element of performance bonuses.

The submission also said the board of the ESB had “significant concern” that the salary for company’s chief executive was insufficient.

In the early part of last year, then minister for housing Darragh O’Brien told the committee he had received warnings from the chairs of GNI, Uisce Éireann and the Land Development Agency (LDA) that pay restrictions for their top executives posed “very real and serious risks” to the work of the organisations – the first two warning they could lose their chief executives.

However, the Cabinet did not adopt the SPRC report in full, instead diluting it. It decided market rates would apply but there would be no backdating of increases to May of last year, as the review proposed, and the ban on performance-related bonuses for chief executives would remain.

Jack Chambers announced a banded salary structure for chief executives in April. The boards of State commercial companies would propose a point on the banded salary structure for their chief executives’ pay.

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Almost six months after the SPRC presented its findings, several State companies seem frustrated at the slow pace at which the new system is being introduced.

The Irish Times understands that An Post chairman Kieran Mulvey wrote to the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport and the Minister for Public Expenditure to stress the urgency of securing the proposed pay bands to allow the company to press ahead with a recruitment process for a chief executive. The company’s current chief executive David McRedmond – who is paid a basic salary of €250,000 annually – is understood to be scheduled to leave in autumn next year.

Gas Networks Ireland, having lost its chief executive to EirGrid, sought a pay increase earlier this year, but remains in limbo with an acting chief executive. The Department of Housing said the request remained “under review”.

The same department said Uisce Éireann had sought a pay increase for its chief executive, Niall Gleeson, who earns €225,000.

The ESB, whose chief executive Paddy Hayes is paid a basic salary of €318,000, confirmed it made a submission in relation to his salary in April. It would not confirm the amount being sought.

Bus Éireann too said it made a “business case … regarding CEO salary” which is currently under consideration. Its current boss, Stephen Kent, is paid €286,000 a year. The Galway Harbour company, whose chief executive is paid €104,000, has also made a request, currently under review.

Meanwhile, the LDA has been seeking an extension to its chief executive’s contract, arguing that John Coleman should be given a further five-year deal.

This has run foul of DPER, which said it would “contravene long-standing policy” by bringing his term to a total of 12 years. This issue of pay is in the ether here too – while no formal request for a salary increase has been lodged, a three-year contract offer to Coleman remains unsigned.

The agency said in recent days that “when compared to both commercial and public sector remuneration, the LDA CEO’s total pay ranks significantly behind”.

The issue extends to other parts of the public sector, not just State-owned commercial companies.

Last year, the outgoing director general of the Environmental Protection Agency wrote to its parent department saying its functions had “grown exponentially” while salaries for the role and for directors have stagnated – and called for a previous link to high-level Civil Service positions to be restored.

Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, has made a similar bid for pay restoration, saying in private ministerial correspondence that he found failure to make a decision which he has long sought “to be completely unreasonable”.

The SPRC, which confined its first tranche of work to the commercial semi-States, may in time turn its attention to pay in non-commercial State organisations, or even civil servants. Government departments that have sought clarity on what comes next for the pay review body have been left without confirmation.

The Department of Justice has received one pay increase request, while the Department of Health said it has rejected two. The Department of Culture has approved one of three requests, with one still under consideration.

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The Government is facing the prospect of a slew of salary increases for some of the best-paid public sector staff. At the same time, the public are struggling with an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, and the Coalition has promised to end once-off cost-of-living measures.

It also has the high-profile position at the top of the Health Service Executive to fill at a rate just under €400,000, while any pay increase request from organisations such as RTÉ would potentially be combustible.

The road ahead is fraught with political peril – but the Coalition has created a system for pay to march upwards for this top cohort – so for them it may be paved with gold.