The only female executive among the 50 was Ann Heraty, founder and chief executive of recruitment group CPL Resources, who earned 413,000 in the year to 30 June.

By comparison, the highest earner, Brian Goggin of Bank of Ireland, earned almost 4m in the bank's last financial year which ran until last March, and received allowances and benefits that were almost three times greater than Heraty's entire pay packet.

It is also apparent that well-known executives are not necessarily the best paid. Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive and probably Ireland's most recognisable boss, earned 992,000 from the airline last year, just 10,000 more than the beleaguered and less famous Dermot Mannion of Aer Lingus.

In the public sector, Professor Brendan Drumm, controversial chief executive of the HSE, is trumped by Declan Collier of the Dublin Airport Authority, who is the best-paid executive of any state company.

Drumm receives 453,000 a year for running the state's public health system, while Collier gets 688,000 for running three airports.

It is also clear that executives tend to do well when they part from their companies.

Eircom's former CEO Dr Philip Nolan received a 1.8m termination payment from Babcock and Brown after the Australian bank took over the former state telecoms company.

IFG Group founder Richard Hayes received a 1.1m package when he retired from the company in March 2006, which made him the firm's highest earner for the year even though he wasn't at the firm for most of it.

1. Brian Goggin Chief executive, Bank of Ireland
Salary: /3.99m
Numerous eyebrows were raised earlier this year when it emerged that Goggin, Bank of Ireland's chief executive since 2004, received almost 4m for his services to the bank in 2006.Goggin's earnings were so high because, although his basic salary was 1.1m, he received a performance bonus of 2.03m after a 28% jump in the bank's pre-tax profits to 1.9bn. An accountant, Goggin has spent his entire career with Bank of Ireland, joining the firm in 1969. He became chief executive for its wholesale financial services division in 1996 and moved into asset management in 2003 before being promoted to chief executive.

The most notable feature of Goggin's time at the helm, however, has been a bitter dispute between the bank and its staff over its attempts to replace their de"nedbene"t pension scheme, which offers guaranteed pension benefits, with a defined-contribution scheme, which doesn't.

2. Paul Walsh Group chief executive, Diageo
Salary: /3.75m An Englishman who controls the fate of Ireland's unofficial national drink, Guinness, Walsh became head of multinational drinks company Diageo in 2000. Walsh quickly made his mark by dumping the group's Burger King chain of fast food outlets to focus on its core drinks business.

According to recent figures, Walsh's strategy seems to be paying off as the group's profits to the end of June rose by 8% to 2.15bn on the previous year. Guinness, however, is starting to become a consistent underperformer for the group as its Irish sales have declined by around 20% over the past three years.

Although Walsh has said he will not sell the brand, it remains unclear whether he feels the same way about its historic brewery at St James's Gate in Dublin.

3. David Drumm Chief executive, Anglo Irish Bank
Salary: /3.02m
Drumm, who became Anglo Irish's chief executive in 2005, received the second-highest performance bonus of all the executives in this survey, accounting for 1.9m of his final pay packet. He has been with the bank since 1993 and established its North American lending division in 1998.

Despite being a millionaire banking executive, however, Drumm has occasionally been heard to arrive at the bank's headquarters with U2 and Bruce Springsteen blasting out from his car. Aged just 40, Drumm didn't even sit on the bank's main board before gaining the top job, but delivered a 38% increase in profits to 850m in his first full year in charge.

4. Philip Nolan Former chief executive, Eircom
Salary: /2.67m
Since its flotation in 1999, Eircom has had several changes of ownership and management, which is re"ected in Nolan's relatively brief tenure as CEO between 2002 and 2006. Nolan, whose was previously an executive at three British gas companies, was appointed by the Valentia Consortium that bought Eircom in 2001, stayed for its second flotation and was replaced when Babcock & Brown took it over in 2006, receiving an impressive 1.8m termination payment on his departure.

5. Liam O'Mahony Chief executive, CRH
Salary: /2.66 million
O'Mahony, who is due to retire at the end of next year, has been with building materials group CRH since 1971 and has previously held several senior management posts with the group.

CRH, which employs 80,000 people at over 3,300 locations, was already a substantial organisation with an annual turnover of just under 9bn when O'Mahony took the helm in 2000.

O'Mahony has managed to continue this growth and turnover last year was 18.7bn.

Despite this performance, O'Mahony continues to drive the group forward; last month, it was announced that it was gearing up to buy 3.25bn worth of assets from Mexican cement "rm Cemex.