Hospital bosses to receive significantly reduced salaries

Chief executives appointed in future to run the country’s main hospitals will receive significantly reduced salaries, the Government has decided.

Managers appointed to head up major voluntary teaching hospitals such as Beaumont, St Vincent’s, the Mater, St James’s and Tallaght in Dublin will receive a salary of €121,600 on a five-year contract containing specific performance criteria.

This is nearly €15,000 less than the current €136,282 official salary for such posts.

Separately, the Department of Public Expenditure has approved new proposals for dealing with cases of hospitals and agencies who contended managers in their employment had contractual rights to additional top-up payments over and above their officially-sanctioned pay rates.

The move increases the likelihood that many of the 80 such managers working in more than 24 State-funded voluntary hospitals and health agencies will be permitted to retain their existing additional payments on a “personal-to-holder” basis.

On foot of a controversy last year over salary top-ups in the health service, the Departments of Health and Public Expenditure, along with the HSE, carried out a review to determine appropriate salary levels for chief executives in State-funded voluntary hospitals and health agencies, known technically as “section 38” organisations.

Different bands

As a result hospitals and health agencies have been designated different bands to determine pay levels for chief executives.

In most cases a revised pay scale has been set out for future chief executives.

For example, future chief executives of Dublin’s maternity hospitals – the Coombe, Rotunda and Holles Street – along with those running the Mercy and South Infirmary/Victoria hospitals in Cork will receive between €89,000 and €104,000.

The chief executives of paediatric hospitals – Our Lady’s in Crumlin and Temple Street – will be paid between €95,000 and €110,000.

However, in the case of chief executives of the main voluntary teaching hospitals there will only be one pay rate of €121,600.

Informed sources said in the case of some hospitals and social care agencies, the salaries of future chief executives will be higher than at present.

However, no specific examples of this have been set out.

Performance criteria

The Department of Public Expenditure said the new salary bands had been sanctioned on condition that any new appointments would be based on a five-year employment contract which would include “specific performance criteria to ensure that performance standards for chief executives are both set and measured”.

It said the move was also approved on the basis that the Department of Health and the HSE would put in place "a robust policing system to prevent any deviation in relation to the sanctioned remuneration levels".

New legislation published last week by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin also contained a provision that any contract entered into with an employee by a State-funded body, such as a voluntary hospital or health agency, would be "void" if it gave rise to additional remuneration without official authorisation.

The Department of Public Expenditure said that under this legislation any such additional money would in future have to be repaid by any public servant who received it.

The Department of Health had previously stated more than 80 business cases had been received arguing senior mangers should be permitted to continue to get additional remuneration on foot of their contractual rights.

The Department of Health said: “The HSE has been asked for confirmation of which business cases meet the criteria for approval, including which salaries meet the criteria for red-circling on a pensionable basis and which allowances meet the criteria for red-circling on a non-pensionable basis before it can communicate a decision to red-circle a salary or allowance to the relevant section 38 agency.

“The HSE has also been asked to confirm which business cases will be rejected under the criteria for approval,” said the department.