THERE ARE 110 senior managers in the Health Service Executive (HSE) earning more than €100,000 a year, according to official figures.
The new figures relate exclusively to senior administrative and managerial staff in the HSE and do not include hospital consultants or other medical personnel who are receiving more than €200,000 a year in some cases.
The figures also take account of the pay cuts of 10-15 per cent introduced by the Government last year for senior grades in the public service as well as the pension levy introduced in 2009.
The figures also take account of the recent early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes introduced by the Government for administrative and managerial staff in the HSE.
Administrative and managerial personnel who are paid more than €100,000 would include national directors in the HSE, some assistant national directors, the chief executives of some hospitals, some hospital network managers and some local health office managers.
The new figures were set out last week by the HSE’s national director of finance, Liam Woods, in reply to a parliamentary question tabled by independent deputy Maureen O’Sullivan.
“As at 28.01.11 there are 110 staff employed at administrative and managerial levels in the Health Service Executive earning over €100,000 a year,” he stated.
Almost five years ago in June 2006, the HSE revealed that at that stage there were about 100 senior managers in the organisation receiving salaries of €100,000 or more.
The HSE said last month that 141 senior managers – at assistant national director, general manager and grade VIII level – had left the organisation under the early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes introduced by the Government in November.
The HSE said that 25 staff at assistant national director level – 20 per cent of the total – left under either the early retirement or voluntary redundancy schemes.
It said that 21 per cent of its 183 personnel at general manager level took the packages on offer, while 15 per cent of the 484 staff at the grade VIII level also left as part of the schemes.
About 2,000 staff in the health service overall left under the early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes which were also made available to support personnel in addition to managerial, administrative and clerical staff.
The Government had initially forecast that up to 5,000 HSE employees could leave.
The total payments made to staff leaving under the schemes was €101 million, which was about €100 million less than the figure the Government had forecast in its original estimates.
