TWO RETIRED employees of the Health Service Executive (HSE) are on pensions of more than €160,000 per year.
The HSE pension payments are among the highest in the public service which are known to date.
They are higher than the controversial pension payments paid to a number of former secretaries general of government departments which have emerged over recent months.
The two retired HSE employees receiving pensions of more than €160,000 are based in the west.
New official figures on HSE pension payments also show that more than 150 retired staff are receiving pensions of more than €100,000 per year. However, on the other end of the scale nearly 20,000 HSE pensioners are receiving less than €30,000 per year.
Sources said last night it was most likely that the two pensioners receiving more than €160,000 per year in pension payments were retired hospital consultants.
However, medical sources have questioned this assertion on the basis that the pension payments would mean that the individuals concerned had reckonable salaries for pension purposes of more than €320,000 per year.
The pension figure for the two former HSE employees is higher than the controversial annual pension payment of €142,000 which the former government secretary Dermot McCarthy is to receive following his retirement this year.
Details of the HSE pension payments were set out in figures provided by the health authority to Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald in answer to a written parliamentary question.
Speaking yesterday, Ms McDonald said: “After nearly 10 months in Government one thing is very clear, neither Labour nor Fine Gael are ready or willing to tackle high pay and pensions across the senior echelons of the public sector.
“Minister Howlin has merely tinkered around the edges, feigning reform all the while failing dismally to introduce a culture of accountability, transparency and equity to the pay and pensions of senior public service managers. This is simply not good enough.”
The Irish Timesreported in October that more than 100 retired civil servants are receiving pensions of more than €100,000 per year. Official figures showed that there were seven retired Civil Service personnel in receipt of pensions of between €140,000 and €160,000 a year.