HSE to meet St Vincent’s Hospital over top-up pay

The Health Service Executive is meeting with the chairman of the St Vincent's Hospital Group today to discuss top-up payments made to senior executives.

Chief executive of the group Nicholas Jermyn, is receiving total remuneration of close to €300,000, it was revealed late last month.

Mr Jermyn was receiving a public salary of €136,282 in addition to a privately funded payment of €136,951 and a privately sourced car allowance of €19,796, the hospital roup said in a letter to Health Service Executive director general Tony O’Brien last month.

St Vincent’s Hospital Group said his total remuneration package was €292,669.

The figures suggest that, based on information in the public domain, Mr Jermyn is the State’s highest-paid health service administrator. Mr O’Brien receives just under €185,000 a year.

Mr O’Brien had sought the meeting with group chairman Prof. Noel Whelan “with a view to discussing how the hospital can move towards compliance [with public pay policy]”.

St Vincent’s Hospital Group had come under strong criticism from members of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for refusing up to December 23rd to provide full details of payments made to executives.

In its letter the hospital group also said its director of finance/company secretary was receiving remuneration of €140,876: a public salary of €108,332 and a privately sourced payment of €32,544. It said the director of nursing was receiving remuneration of €96,405: a public salary of €81,552 and a privately sourced payment of €14,853.

The group said was in a position to fund the remuneration as it had a source of private income from the operation of the nearby St Vincent’s Private Hospital.

The group said remuneration had been approved by the hospital group’s board and was regularly reviewed against performance and benchmarked externally.