Look at how much the Eircom directors got! Makes me sick!

aidan_dunne

Saw this article in The Star today and it made me want to go to the houses of all these guys with a shotgun to sort him out in a "Reservoir Dogs" kind of way! I hope you're all sitting down because this is a fecking disgrace.

SPRING RINGS UP £130,000

Former Tanaiste Dick Spring has pocketed £130,000 for his two-year membership of the board of massive lossmaker eircom.

The company has now been bought by Valentia - with thousands of small share-holders losing hard-earned cash on the money they originally invested.

Mr. Spring's income from eircom was boosted by a £4,000 bonus which he was awarded by fellow directors for extra work.

The former Labour Part leader will lose out on his lucrative eircom earnings now the company has been sold.

But he will still receive £12,000 a year for his work on the board of Kerry firm Fexco, and another £14,000 a year for chairing the software group Airtel.

Former Fianna Fail EC commissioner Ray MacSharry made £330,000 out of his chairmanship of eircom - £12,000 a month plus £100,000 bonus on departure.

Departing chief executive Alfie Kane will get £380,000 in severance pay.

Other directors well paid for their efforts on behalf of eircom's hard-hit shareholders include Jim Flavin, who earned £250,000 including a £75,000 bonus, and banker Pat Molloy, whose total income was £140,000, including a £50,000 bonus.

Trade union boss Bill Attley also got a bonus worth £30,000, bringing his total income from eircom to £120,000.

The total payout in bonuses - or special payments for increased workloads - will be £400,000.

The bonuses - awarded by the directors to themselves - will infuriate many small investors who face losses on about one-third of their original investments.

As I said, these figures are a bloody disgrace and just show how the eircom directors concentrated on driving the company into the ground whilst beefing up their own bank balances. I find it amazing how they were able to get these amounts considering that eircom keep crying hardship and continuously claim that "flat-rate internet access and FRIACO are not economically viable." Not economically viable? NOT F**KING ECONOMICALLY VIABLE? Listen up you shower of total gobs**tes! If you hadn't been giving yourselves massive backhanders and taking money from the company to award yourselves these "bonuses" you'll find that it probably WAS economically viable!

And another thing. Dick Spring got a £4,000 bonus for "extra work", eh? What extra work? And that goes for the rest of them too. They did nothing to improve the company, the share price plummeted, investors lost a fortune, the infrastructure is crumbling, they decided amongst themselves last year to give themselves a bonus even though there was uproar at the AGM over it, they decided to bail out then and sell to Valentia and take a big slice as they were walking out the door. Work? Performance bonuses? BULLS**T!!!! They sat on their f**king ar$e$ all day for two years counting their money, deciding amongst themselves to award themselves even more money when they felt like it, all the while laughing at the poor eejits who bought shares in the company!

I said before that eircom were operating on a policy based purely on greed at the expense of customers wishes and the infrastructure. This just proves my point. What a total shower of ba$tards!

Time for another very, VERY angry letter to eircom, methinks! By the way, anyone know the home address or phone numbers of any of the people mentioned in the report? If you do, please tell me so I can write or phone them and give them a piece of my mind as well.

I think I need a Valium! lol.

bigdaddyfix

a new business unit can be economically viable or not viable regardless of the company's financial condition.

I wouldn't want any business to release a product to me below their costs, as it makes it that much more likely it will be pulled away again, invariably *just* as I became 100% dependant on it.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by bigdaddyfix
a new business unit can be economically viable or not viable regardless of the company's financial condition.

I wouldn't want any business to release a product to me below their costs, as it makes it that much more likely it will be pulled away again, invariably *just* as I became 100% dependant on it.

On the other hand Eircom originally claimed that its cost for LLU was three times the European average. I would take Eircom's cost claims with a pinch of salt.

Matfinn

Those men afformentioned in the first post represent nothing but utter greed in our society. It is unfortunate that people like them are in the world today, but thats the way it is. Personally I would like to see a complete end to this greed. I would take all that money back and give it to a good cause. These are the men who lead Eircom into the ground, and they are the cause of most if not all of our grief, not to mention the poor shareholders who lost out. As always, the little people get dicked by the big people, and we are meant to be a democracy.
That telecommunications bill that was delayed by three years, I could almost be sure someone got paid in the government to purposely hold that back, so a certain cowboy company could do what they wanted. Hopefully in the future, there will be none of this corruption.

Mat

aidan_dunne

I agree with you, Mat. There's too many underhand dealings, backhanders, brown envelopes flying around and corruption in this country. For God's sake, just look at the article to see. A politician, Dick Spring, on the board of a company like Eircom. Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney out promoting the floatation two years ago and encouraging members of the public to invest in Eircom. The Communications Bill being delayed. It's obvious that Eircom are handing out brown envelopes all over the place to get their way. Of course, it's not just Eircom. It's happening with companies all over the place. Just look at the planning tribunal and all the other tribunals that have been going on for the past few years. I'm sick and tired of this greed and corruption. That's why nobody's getting my vote in the next general election and every single person who comes to my door canvassing for votes will get nothing but an earful from me. Shower of corrupt ba$tards, the lot of them!

dahamsta

Speaking personally...

Nail 'em up I say, nail 'em up!

I agree with you, Mat. There's too many underhand dealings, backhanders, brown envelopes flying around and corruption in this country. For God's sake, just look at the article to see. A politician, Dick Spring, on the board of a company like Eircom. Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney out promoting the floatation two years ago and encouraging members of the public to invest in Eircom. The Communications Bill being delayed. It's obvious that Eircom are handing out brown envelopes all over the place to get their way. Of course, it's not just Eircom. It's happening with companies all over the place. Just look at the planning tribunal and all the other tribunals that have been going on for the past few years. I'm sick and tired of this greed and corruption.

We'll make them suffer come the revolution Aidan, or at least, come the Joint Committee. I look forward to seeing the politicians responsible in front of Pat Rabbitte, or someone like him. It's kind of pleasing to think about actually, because it will happen, it'll all come out, it always does. Course, the politicians might get away with it, but we can put the people ultimately responsible in jail, eh? Won't that put a smile on your face?

That's why nobody's getting my vote in the next general election and every single person who comes to my door canvassing for votes will get nothing but an earful from me. Shower of corrupt ba$tards, the lot of them!

There's a while to go yet Aidan, don't burn your bridges. IrelandOffline might give you someone to vote for yet. We don't particularly want to be partisan, but if needs musten...

adam

yellum

The Union boss is the biggest disgrace I think. Thought Trade Union bosses had no money. Hah !

sceptre

Just another example of the "mé fein" mentality that seems to rule the roost in Ireland.

Toffs at the top, plebs at the bottom and a big group of people in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them.

Add to Eircom people who won't answer questions in the CTC enquiry because they suddenly decide the chairman is "unfit for the office"

Suddenly the budget has a 2 billion deficit vecause of an economic crisis that "no-one saw coming" (despite idiots like me warning about it for the past 18 months and saying all budgets should have been the opposite of what they were - when the country has money you raise taxes, not lower them (and vice versa))

I'm with adam on this one - everyone can bugger off when they ask for my vote in the next election. Anyone who acts competent in the next 3-5 years can ask me for my vote then.

bigdaddyfix

I guess I should have made an additional point in my first response. Let's not try and overturn capitalism, let's just focus our energies on the purpose: unmetered and broadband Internet access in Ireland.

All of the sniping at Eircom does none of us any good. Perhaps you feel good by raising your blood pressure and waving your arms around, crying about these travesties, but I personally don't see what that accomplishes, at least not positive accomplishments.

Few of us as individuals have any power to compel Eircom to do anything. Even shareholders have very limited powers in this regard. It's similar to a red herring argument, drawing time and attention away from somewhere useful.

Where do we have power? Focus there. Public officials, law makers, law enforcement. The more mixed messages you send by ranting and raving about Eircom's business (of which few of us truly *know* anything) just serve to turn off reasonable people who might be in support of your core goals.
I

sceptre

I don't think there are many people here who have a fundamental problem with capitalism.

Bottom line is though, that it's nuts for a company to hand out bonuses and pay increases to board members when the performance of a company isn't too hot (both share price and commercially, notwithstanding the effective monopoly)

Obviously the payoff on the takeover is another matter, something that people should get when their job becomes redundant (though the figures seem a little high imho)

Dustaz

Originally posted by bigdaddyfix

All of the sniping at Eircom does none of us any good. Perhaps you feel good by raising your blood pressure and waving your arms around, crying about these travesties, but I personally don't see what that accomplishes, at least not positive accomplishments.

Few of us as individuals have any power to compel Eircom to do anything. Even shareholders have very limited powers in this regard. It's similar to a red herring argument, drawing time and attention away from somewhere useful.

Where do we have power? Focus there. Public officials, law makers, law enforcement.
I

Hear hear! I couldnt agree with this sentiment more. Half of the spam on this board is just whinging about eircom, and it achieves nothing except to provide fodder for the rumour mill ("ADSL will only ever be available on the south side of dublin, because thats where ntl are" roflmao).