Nationalist and unionist Assembly members have strongly criticised severance payments worth more than £1 million made to eight health board executives in the North.
A report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office revealed that the payments, ranging from £5,750 to £331,000, were paid out to former executives of two health trusts and one health board. The report criticised instances where there was no claw-back clause if executives subsequently got a job in the National Health Service.
In one case, a trust chief executive accepted a package worth almost £90,000 and took up a post with a trust in England a week later.
Mr Roy Beggs Jnr MLA (UUP), a member of the Assembly's public accounts committee, said it was "scandalous", that guidelines on claw-back clauses had not been adhered to.
Sinn Fein MLA and health committee member Mr John Kelly called the payments an insult to "overworked and underpaid" people working in the NHS.