THE NEW head of the Health Service Executive is to be paid almost €100,000 more than the Government had initially planned.
The appointment of Cathal Magee as the new HSE chief executive for a five year term was announced yesterday after a special HSE board meeting. The former interim chief executive of Eircom will succeed Prof Brendan Drumm, whose term ends in mid-August.
Mr Magee (56) left Eircom in February after 15 years with the company. As acting chief executive of the company last year, he set the wheels in motion for a major restructuring of Eircom’s cost base and helped to scuttle Australian financier Rob Topfer’s attempt to capture the business.
Mr Magee has been a non-executive director of the EBS since 2002, has chaired the building society’s risk committee and has also served on its credit committee. He received some criticism from society members over commercial property lending decisions taken at the society in recent years. However, he has been praised by executive management at the society as “a very strong perfomer” on the board.
The HSE confirmed he will be paid a salary of €322,000 but will not be entitled to a performance-related bonus.
The salary to be paid to Mr Magee is significantly higher than might be expected, reflecting the HSEs difficulty in attracting a suitable candidate at the advertised rate.
Minister for Health Mary Harney told the Dáil in March the new chief executive would be paid a salary of €228,466 – considerably less than Prof Drumm. She said the Government had decided to link the salary for the top HSE job with that of the secretary general of the Department of Finance and the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach.
She also said the salary for the new HSE chief executive was in line with the recommendations of the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in reports in 2007 and 2009.
Prof Drumm started on a salary of about €320,000, with the potential for a 25 per cent bonus on top of that.
He also took with him to the job his own advisers. The HSE confirmed Mr Magee would not be bringing a team of advisers with him.
While his salary in the HSE will be more than Ms Harney might have planned to pay, it will be but a fraction of what Mr Magee earned in Eircom – about €860,000 in 2007.
Nonetheless the HSE will pay him significantly more than what the Taoiseach Brian Cowen earns. Mr Cowen has a salary of €228,000 per annum.
Ms Harney said she was delighted Mr Magee had agreed to take up the post. “Mr Magee brings a track record of top-class management and organisational leadership to our health services,” she said.
“He has shown total commitment to people and team-building in his management roles throughout his career, and I have no doubt that this will be of great benefit to the combined clinical and management leadership of the HSE,” she added.