VHI paid 30 consultants €500,000

About 30 hospital consultants received more than €500,000 from the VHI last year last year.

The company, the county’s largest health insurer, said today the average payout to the 3,002 hospital consultants who provided treatment for its subscribers was €85,956.

The VHI said half of the consultants earned less than €50,000 and 71 per cent earned less than €100,000. The company said 1 per cent of consultants earned over €500,000.

Overall the VHI paid out €258 million to consultants in either full-time or locum posts in Irish hospitals. The insurer declined to state the highest amount earned by a hospital consultant.

Minister for Health James Reilly last year said one consultant had received more than €1 million from the VHI.

Consultants with private practice who are on the VHI’s earnings list are also likely to have received payments from other health insurance companies such as Aviva or Quinn.

The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association said the figures set out by the VHI yesterday represented gross payments, from which the cost of staff, premises, equipment and insurance had to be deducted.

Consultants working in the public health system receive an average salary of €180,000.

However, the former head of human resources in the HSE, Sean McGrath, told The Irish Times last week that when allowances were taken into account around 500 senior doctors were receiving more than the Government’s salary ceiling level of €200,000.

He said one consultant received more than €400,000.