THE HEALTH Service Executive paid out more than €14.5 million to rehire hundreds of retired staff members last year, with almost €1 million being spent on short-term contracts for fewer than 50 retired clerical staff.
The retired clerical personnel were part of an overall group of 773 former staff, many of whom were in receipt of pensions, who were asked to come back on a short-term basis.
The Irish Timesreported recently that Government departments and State agencies had paid out more than €16 million overall to retired public service staff to carry out short-term contract work last year.
The HSE paid out more than €14.6 million of this to retired staff – by far the largest amount of any Government department or State agency.
Further details of the payments released by the HSE show that nearly €10 million was paid out to retired medical and nursing staff.
However, the HSE figures also reveal that it had paid out €913,547 to 46 retired clerical personnel who were rehired.
The HSE did not comment in detail on the reasons why it had spent so much on bringing back retired staff. A spokeswoman said that in some cases it was due to specialist expertise of the personnel concerned or to allow them to complete projects or to serve on interview panels.
The HSE figures state that 436 retired nursing personnel were also taken back for short periods at a cost of more than €7.8 million.
A total of 45 retired medical staff were also rehired at a cost of €1.73 million. Five retired dental personnel were brought back to work at a cost of more than €159,000.
More than 50 general support personnel were rehired by the HSE – a move which cost €1.05 million. The cost of bringing back 31 retired health and social care professionals was just under €890,000.
The HSE spent €1.13 million on rehiring 75 other retired staff who are listed as "uncategorised" in the breakdown of the figures given to The Irish Times.
Details of the amounts spent by Government departments and agencies overall on rehiring retired staff were revealed on foot of a parliamentary question tabled by Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell.
Ms Mitchell said she had set down the question as the issue of retired staff being brought back to work in State bodies had been raised on a number of occasions on the doorsteps during the recent elections.
“People benefiting from pensions paid out of the public purse should not be re-employed while there is widescale unemployment of many well-qualified individuals,” Ms Mitchell said.