Special reports

71-year-old Sir Roy McNulty made his name as boss of aerospace company Shorts - now Bombardier - and is currently chairman of the Ilex Urban Regeneration Company, a body established by Stormont to control a major revamp of Londonderry's waterfront, including former army bases.

As well as the Derry post, Sir Roy also works the equivalent of five days a week for two major public bodies in England, where he lives, but he told BBC Newsline he believed "each of these three roles is being done justice." He also said he accepted the Ilex position out of "an obligation" to the area he grew up in.

BBC Newsline has previously examined the salaries paid to the chairmen of more than 100 non-departmental government bodies, ranging from the likes of the Housing Executive to the lesser-known Drainage Council.

Dozens of chairman are paid nothing, some others tens of thousands. All are part time roles. The salaries are set by individual Stormont departments.

Disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act to BBC Newsline would place Sir Roy McNulty as the highest paid chairman of any quango in Northern Ireland - well above, for example, the £40,000 salaries of the chairmen of Invest NI or the Housing Executive.

Sir Roy told BBC Newsline by e-mail: "I believe the demands of the Ilex Chair role are probably greater than the norm in terms of the difficulty of the regeneration task in Derry."

Under the terms of Sir Roy McNulty's appointment to Ilex in October 2007, he was to be paid £800 a day for 30 days work annually - giving a salary of £24,000.

But figures released to BBC Newsline reveal he earned £103,600 in his first 15 months at Ilex - a yearly wage of about £80,000, more than three times what was first agreed.

He has also received more than £15,000 in expenses, mostly to cover travel to and from his home in the Cotswolds, north of Bristol.

Sir Roy is also the deputy chairman of the Olympic Development Authority, charged with delivery of the London 2012 games. His workload, the ODA told us, is one-and-a-half days a week.

He is also chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority. His work commitment there is three-and-a-half days a week. It can make his schedule a bit of a juggling act, fitting in some work for Ilex on days he is in England at other board meetings.

Sir Roy told BBC Newsline it was "not my plan to have three jobs at once" and that the Ilex post means he often works "in excess of 60 hours a week" including weekends. As for working for three bodies on the same day, it's "not too difficult with modern communications."

The chairman's pay packet was agreed by Stormont ministers and BBC Newsline has seen correspondence between Sir Roy and government officials. It is clear he is valued - at one point in pay negotiations a civil servant wrote his credentials were "impressive" and it would be "seriously damaging" to lose him.

According to a correspondence between civil servants, Sir Roy initially wanted £1,000 a day, but accepted £800. His contracted time commitment to Ilex was two-and-a-half days a month. A working day was 7.2 hours.

But, once into the job, the hours quickly clocked up. It even meant the government paying travelling time on his commute. A civil servant wrote it was "not normal practice" but it would "appear appropriate" as travel time was used preparing for Ilex business.

Periodically, Sir Roy got approval for increasing his number of days and hence his salary. The two-and-a-half days a month has become eight to ten days a month. At one point Sir Roy wrote to officials: "I can assure you I am not seeking to maximise my time on Ilex business."

He also told BBC Newsline he is actually doing more than the ten day limit agreed with Stormont and does not claim payment for a significant amount of work.

Sir Roy also said by e-mail it was "too early to make a fair judgement on what Ilex has achieved to date in my tenure. Ilex has a long way to go but the pace of progress is significantly faster now than it was 18 months ago."

The Department of Social Development - one of the department's Ilex is accountable to - told us Sir Roy McNulty represented good value for money. They said his current pay arrangements will continue until September, when the time commitment is expected to reduce to around two-to-three days a month.

Assigning the work he does a chairman to other staff would also involve "a considerable loss of momentum," according to the DSD.