Four charities in Ireland that receive a combined $19-million a year in state funds refused to disclose their chief executives’ salaries in a survey of nonprofit groups’ finances by the Irish Independent.

Focus Ireland, Bothar, ISPCC, and Self Help Africa declined to divulge executive salaries, as did Unicef and the Children’s Medical and Research Foundation, which get no state cash but collect tens of millions of euros a year in private donations. Among the 24 charities that did respond to the newspaper’s survey, the average CEO salary was about $133,000 and the highest in 2011 was $198,000.

Ireland’s government last week launched a voluntary governance code for nonprofit organizations, but some sector leaders and public officials have stepped up calls for a formal regulatory agency to monitor charity finances and heighten transparency and accountability for taxpayer-supported groups.

The government pledged to set up such an agency in 2009 but has said more recently that doing so would be too costly in light of budget restrictions imposed by a European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout of Ireland.