Nama paid out €2.6 million last year in redundancy pay and ‘garden leave’ as the agency continues to wind down its work.
Redundancy payments totalled €1.7 million with one person receiving a sum of between €150,000 and €175,000.
Another person received a payoff in the range from €100,000 to €125,000 while seven people received redundancy valued between €75,000 and €100,000.
There were ten more former staff who got a golden handshake worth between €50,000 and €75,000, according to data released under FOI.
Five people received redundancy in the range of €25,000 to €50,000 with two more getting less than €25,000, Nama said.
Garden leave totalling €900,000 was paid to 32 individual employees of the National Asset Management Agency in 2022.
One person earned between €50,000 and €75,000 while still technically employed by Nama but not allowed to work.
Twenty more got between €25,000 and €50,000 during their garden leave, which normally applies when there is potential for a conflict of interest with the new job the person plans to take up after leaving.
Eleven departing staff received garden leave of less than €25,000, Nama said as staff numbers continue to dwindle at the agency.
At the beginning of last year, there were 145 people working there, which fell over the course of the year to 117 by December 1st.
Asked about the payments, a spokesperson said: “Redundancy payments arise from the agency reducing staff numbers as part of its wind-down.
“Garden leave payments result in no incremental cost to the Agency - they would have to be incurred as a salary payment irrespective of whether the staff member was placed on garden leave or not.”
Separately, records from Nama's parent – the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) – shed light on discussions over the resumption of performance pay there.
The payments had been paused “in light of the economic climate” but resumed last year to reward employees for their work in 2021.
The NTMA said around €2.5 million had been set aside, which would be used to pay 232 of the agency’s 580 staff a bonus.
It said criteria for the award was that it must be specified as a clause in their contract, that it could not be greater than 30 per cent of base salary, and that no payment could exceed €60,000 gross.
A briefing said 31 people earning more than €150,000 would get performance-related pay worth on average 10 per cent of their salary.
A further 27 employees earning between €125,000 and €150,000 would get bonuses worth around 8 per cent of their salary.
The highest payment would be €30,000 for a man, with an average of €10,030 paid to males working with the NTMA.
For women, the highest individual payment was €30,000 with an average of €8,232 paid to females working at the treasury management agency.
Minutes of the NTMA remuneration committee from March 2022 said: “In response to a question from the committee, the HR team advised that a very small proportion of staff being proposed for salary increases were also being proposed for [performance related pay] as a reward for exceptional performance.
“Following due consideration, the Committee resolved to approve an aggregated performance related payment of circa. €2.25 million (up to €2.5 million inclusive of PRSI) in respect of 2021.”
The NTMA had originally refused to release the records but were ordered to do so by the Information Commissioner following an FOI appeal.
