Former Children’s Health Ireland boss kept salary of almost €184k in new role

The former chief executive of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) kept her existing salary of almost €184,000 when she was appointed to a new role in the organisation.

Eilish Hardiman, the former chief executive, was appointed as CHI’s strategic programme director last year.

The issue was among those discussed at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday as it was updated on the financial statements of more than 100 State bodies.

CHI runs the existing children’s hospitals at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght and will be in charge of the new National Children’s Hospital (NCH) once it is completed.

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At the PAC, Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Seamus McCarthy drew attention to a settlement agreement at CHI that saw its former chief executive appointed to the new strategic director role on her existing pay.

Mr McCarthy later said such settlements “will typically have a non-disclosure agreement” and CHI “were reluctant to make any disclosure in relation to either the fact or the content of that settlement so there isn’t any further information in the financial statement”.

The PAC agreed to write to CHI to seek information on the matter.

Ms Hardiman was not named at the committee, nor was her remuneration level as former chief executive identified during the meeting.

CHI’s 2023 annual report puts Ms Hardiman’s remuneration that year at €183,866.

CHI told The Irish Times it “cannot comment on employment matters pertaining to its staff.”

[ CHI unable to move in to national children’s hospital due to continued delaysOpens in new window ]

A new CHI chief executive, Lucy Nugent, took up the role in January this year.

Last year, The Irish Times reported on how the CHI board said Ms Hardiman was being reassigned to the strategic role following 10 years as its chief executive.

The board said at the time that it was Government practice to appoint State-body chief executives on five-year contracts, with no more than two contracted periods.

The Department of Public Expenditure set down a number of conditions when it gave approval for the strategic programme director position on foot of a business case drawn up by the Department of Health which set out the importance of the role.

These conditions included that the creation of the role would be “facilitated by the suppression of an equivalent (national director) post in the HSE [Health Service Executive]”.

Separately, the PAC heard that €250,000 in claims made to private insurers by CHI during 2023 were rejected – or were expected to be – as they had not been submitted in time. Mr McCarthy said this was “a loss of potential income.”

Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan suggested that the €250,000 “simply evaporated because procedurally the relevant forms weren’t submitted”.

The PAC is to seek an explanation of the issue and what actions were taken.

CHI told The Irish Times the €250,000 represented around 70 invoices raised in respect of treatment to patients admitted as private patients and “to put this in context, there were almost 25,000 inpatient admissions (both public and private) in 2023.” It said total private income in 2022 was around €15m.

CHI said it has 12 months to submit invoices to insurers which compares to up to six years that consultants previously had to submit claims.

It said matter was included in the 2023 financial statements which were signed off by the CHI Board and “The related figure disclosed within the 2024 draft Statement on Internal Control amounts to [€200,000].”

It added: “Whilst measures and controls continue to be reviewed and enhanced to mitigate against the likelihood of this arising, CHI is ultimately reliant upon the timely submission of all third parties invoices in order to ensure that the CHI invoices are paid.”

It said that in 2024 CHI retained “an external agency to proactively challenge insurers, on a clinical basis, re: previously rejected claims” and it has successfully recouped €400,000.