THE HEADS OF St Vincent’s Hospital met with the Director General of the HSE today to discuss problems at the hospital with executive pay – but have not given any details on what was discussed.
In a brief statement this evening, the hospital confirmed Professor Noel Whelan, the chair of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, and deputy chair Stewart Harrington met with Tony O’Brien and other senior executives in the HSE over the hospital’s compliance with public sector pay.
Hours before Christmas Day, the hospital released details of how much it was paying its executives, which showed CEO Nicholas Jermyn is being paid an additional €136,591 on top of his HSE salary of €136,282. Jermyn also received a privately-funded allowance of almost €20,000 for a car.
Five other staff members were also found to be receiving extra money on top of their salaries paid by the HSE.
St Vincent’s Healthcare Group says all of the additional money being paid to staff comes from private sources, as the hospital runs both public and private services. It stressed that none of the money came from charitable donations.
However questions remain about the salaries. St Vincent’s had initially refused to disclose how much senior staff were paid when questions arose about whether or not it was complying with the rules around public sector pay.
The hospital group said the outcome of today’s meeting will go back to other senior staff at St Vincent’s before before brought before the HSE again.
“Issues arising from that meeting will be brought to the board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group at a very early date and shortly thereafter there will be further discussions with the HSE,” the statement said.
The hospital once again refused to put forward a spokesperson to answer questions from the media, as it has repeatedly done since the issue arose.
- Additional reporting by Michelle Hennessy
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say