THE Department of Finance has refused to release details of a report which recommended huge pay increases to chief executives of semi-states such as a €120,000, or 22% hike, for ESB boss Padraig McManus last year.

"The report will not be published as it contains sensitive commercial information," a finance official said last week.

The refusal to release the report on chief executives' pay came as the government signalled a review of the pay of the chief executives, some of whom are paid two or three times that of the taoiseach.

The report by Hay consultants benchmarked the pay and bonuses of the chief executives of the commercial semi-states against comparable jobs in the private sector.

Commissioned by then finance minister Brian Cowen in late 2007, it was completed last year and handed over to Cowen but its findings were never made public.

Cowen said at the time that the relevant semi-states would be "informed" of the re­port's findings as would the relevant ministers, who would consider the recommendations.

And it was evident that the Department of Finance never had any intention of releasing the publicly funded report.

"Where increased rates on foot of this report come to be applied, these will in due course be published in the annual accounts of the bodies concerned," Cowen said at the time.

While commercial semi-states operate independently of government, the relevant minister, on behalf of the taxpayer, is the sole shareholder.

While a committee of the particular semi-state sets the pay of its chief executive, the minister has to finally sign off on any pay increases. Finance also has strict guidelines on how a chief executive's pay is set, such as that the performance bonus be a maximum of 35% of basic pay.

A check through the annual reports of the major commercial semi-states such as ESB, Dublin Airport Authority, An Post and Coillte indicates that substantial 'secret' increases were awarded under the Hay report.

The chief executive of the ESB, for example, saw his total pay package, including bonus and pension contributions, go from €535,000 in 2007 to €654,000 in 2008 – an increase of over 22% when the national pay increase was 3.5%.

While McManus accepted a 10% pay cut earlier this year, it still leaves him on a package of almost €600,000.

But Declan Collier of the Dublin Airport Authority saw his package drop from €698,000 in 2007 to €638,000 in 2008, due to a halving of his performance bonus from €167,000 in 2007 to €89,000 last year which, in turn, was down to the poor performances of the authority in 2008.