{"id":668723,"date":"2026-10-29T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668723\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T09:58:09","slug":"new-daa-chief-to-be-paid-e380000-salary-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668723\/","title":{"rendered":"New DAA chief to be paid \u20ac380,000 salary \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The incoming head<\/a> of airport operator DAA <\/a>is set to earn \u20ac380,000, some \u20ac130,000 more than he did leading the Land Development Agency <\/a>(LDA).<\/p>\n

John Coleman is leaving his role as chief executive of the LDA, in which he has served since its inception in 2019, reaching an annual salary of \u20ac250,000. <\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien <\/a>confirmed on Wednesday that the approved salary for the DAA job was \u20ac380,000 a year. This outstrips the salary paid to Coleman\u2019s predecessor at DAA, Kenny Jacobs, who earned \u20ac285,000 per year as part of a total package that came to \u20ac368,000 after the inclusion of pension contributions and other taxable benefits. <\/p>\n

Pay for the position was reassessed on foot of recommendations last year from the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee, an independent advisory body for roles in the public service and at commercial State bodies. <\/p>\n

Coleman agreed a five-year contract extension to remain at the Land Development Agency earlier this year, which followed years of back-and-forth over his contract. <\/p>\n

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act show that Minister for Housing James Browne <\/a>lobbied his party colleague Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers<\/a> over Coleman\u2019s contract earlier this year.<\/p>\n

With the Department of Public Expenditure only offering a three-year extension, Browne told Chambers that an \u201cabundance of caution\u201d over contractual arrangements \u201cis effectively being prioritised over the efficient delivery of Government housing policy\u201d. <\/p>\n

In May, Chambers\u2019 department recommended a \u20ac250,000 salary for Coleman, some \u20ac50,000 higher than had initially been offered, having agreed to a five-year contract extension \u201con an exceptional basis\u201d in April. <\/p>\n

In 2024, LDA chairman Cormac O\u2019Rourke wrote to then minister for housing Darragh O\u2019Brien seeking a five-year extension to Coleman\u2019s contract when it expired in 2026.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke said Coleman had \u201cbeen approached by more than one company in the property\/construction sector over the last six months\u201d and argued that the LDA was \u201cdependent for its success on its founding CEO [chief executive]\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0DAA International to run exclusive Washington terminalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

At the time, the remuneration committee was reviewing senior-level pay in State agencies. O\u2019Rourke said the LDA board was happy to leave the issue of pay to this process, but shared the results of a consultant\u2019s report, commissioned by the LDA board. This indicated that Coleman\u2019s base salary was 61 per cent of that paid to chief executives in comparable companies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis report led to a high degree of concern within the board of the LDA about how vulnerable it is to the loss of its CEO,\u201d he wrote, outlining the importance of Coleman to the LDA\u2019s work. <\/p>\n

He argued it was doubtful the agency would, if it needed to, attract a replacement from the private sector given the package available. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke wrote of Coleman\u2019s commitment to the public sector and LDA, but noted he had a young family, arguing \u201che cannot, nor should he be asked, to take the risk of being without an income in two years time\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incoming head of airport operator DAA is set to earn \u20ac380,000, some \u20ac130,000 more than he did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[283218,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-668723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-celebrity-traitors-pa","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}