The National Concert Hall (NCH) has ceased paying its staff a Christmas Bonus and the bonus ‘buyout’ last year cost the NCH €276,952.
The details are revealed in the NCH’s 2023 annual report which states that in 2023, the board decided that the ‘Christmas Emolument’ to staff would cease by way of buyout.
A note attached to the accounts states that at December 31st 2023 “an accrual of €276,952 was provided for this buyout”.
The Christmas Bonus was payable to anyone employed at the NCH up to December 2021 and the NCH employed 56 people at that time.
However, with the transfer of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) from RTÉ to the NCH in 2022, this resulted in an immediate additional 89 orchestral members of staff.
The number of staff employed in ‘orchestra’ last year increased further to 151 - accounting for almost half of the 295 staff at the NCH in 2023.
If the Christmas Bonus was to be paid to staff employed after December 2021, it would be a multiple of the 2021 bonus bill due to staff numbers increasing more than five fold since 2021 with the transfer of the NSO from RTE.
The transfer of orchestral staff from RTE and additional staff employed subsequently has resulted in the NCH staff costs bill increasing from €2.6 million in 2021 to €9.83 million last year.
NCH was also hit with a €228,964 HR bill in connection with the 2022 RTÉ transfer of staff while its legal bill surged almost threefold to €148,302, which was also as a result of the move of staff from RTÉ.
A note attached to the accounts states that “the Board incurred legal and HR consultancy costs in relation to the transfer of staff of the National Symphony Orchestra from RTE”.
A spokeswoman for the NCH said on Friday: “As part of the transition of the National Symphony Orchestra from RTÉ to the National Concert Hall, additional HR services were procured in 2023. This was required to support the setting up of a HR Department, and to assist in the recruitment processes for a range of vacancies in both the NSO and the National Concert Hall.”
In response to queries on the axing of the Christmas Bonus, the spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on specific remuneration arrangements for staff aside from what is reported in our Annual Accounts."
The annual report shows that the NCH recorded a surplus last year of €605,660 which was down 60pc on the surplus of €1.5 million in 2022.
The NCH’s box office income, together with any government funding or sponsorship related to and funding support for performances curated and produced by the NCH, increased from €2.73 millon to €2.97 million.
The NCH’s largest source of income was Government grant of €13.28 million and its overall income totalled €20.33 million.
In his accompanying report, chief executive of the NCH, Robert Read stated that he was delighted “to report that attendances for the year remained strong across all programmes”.
He said: “In 2023, the National Concert Hall promoted over 1,500 events on and off-site, welcoming almost 240,000 audience members to the venue.”
The salary for the ceo increased from €114,506 to €123,073 in 2023 and didn’t include any performance related pay. In total, four members of staff earned over €100,000.
