HSE cuts €40,000 in allowances paid to new senior director

The HSE has withdrawn more than €40,000 in allowances paid on top of salary to a senior executive in the health service who was appointed in late July.

The HSE said that following a review it had discontinued paying its new national director of acute hospitals Ian Carter an academic allowance of €32,473 and a car allowance of €8,937.

The HSE said that this was “to ensure full compliance with salary for the position approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform”.

Mr Carter, a former chief executive of St James’s Hospital, was appointed at the end of July as part of the introduction of the new directorate system to run the HSE.

At the time the HSE said Mr Carter was receiving a total package of €188,959, which was over €3,600 more than Taoiseach Enda Kenny gets.

Under public service pay rules, no new manager is supposed to earn more than the Taoiseach. However, the HSE at the time denied it was breaching the public service salary cap.

The HSE said at the time that Mr Carter had taken up the role of national director for acute hospitals for three years within the scope of an overall five-year secondment to the health authority from his post at St James’s Hospital.

It said his remuneration package as part of his secondment to the HSE was in line with that he was receiving at St James’s.

The HSE said that when Mr Carter was appointed as national director for acute hospitals, his financial package “was consistent with elements of his seconded remunerative arrangement”.

Asked at the time of his appointment to explain the academic allowance, a HSE spokesman said it was in respect of an “existing commitment” as an adjunct professor in TCD.

Unpaid
After TCD confirmed that Mr Carter no longer had an appointment at the college, the HSE spokesman said the payment related to a "previous" commitment he had with TCD. He said Mr Carter was still an adjunct professor but this was now unpaid.

The HSE said yesterday that since the initial announcement of the remuneration package for the national director of acute hospitals it had received clarification from the Department of Health on the total salary to be paid.