@Mary Garry: for €420k per annum?
Of course she would!

@Mary Garry: she is giving her opinion. I happen to think it is very accurate.

@Mary Garry: I wouldn’t, because I’m not qualified, I don’t have the experience and I wouldn’t be capable of resolving the long standing issues. €420k per year wouldn’t change that. People who have previously held the role had more experience and we’re more qualified and still managed to make it worse. The money should be €100k per year and should go to someone not in it for the money, but with the desire and abilities to fix a broken system.

@Mary Garry: If she was qualified and professional, why not. Mr. Reid on the other hand is a journey-man súçkiñg the honey !

@Ailbhe:
So you want someone who spent their whole life building their reputation to take over a role CEO of an Organistion of 117,000 employees and a budget of about €21bn and basically do it for charity…

How about we actually pay the market rate for the job and get somone who is highly qualified…

A CEO to do the job above costs millions, yet we want to do it on the cheap… We have been decades at this,..
https://chiefexecutive.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CEO_CompReport_ExecSummary_2014.pdf

Running the HSE is a very difficult job with a CEO ( and management team) that would have to be highly experienced and understand the huge challenges the role takes… There is far easier money other places for a person who has those skills…

€420k for this role to the right person with the risk involved is career suicide… I know people will say but it is huge, good CEOs are like soccer players, there are only certain amount that are really good enough. There are loads that will give you a best effort. We are looking for person to head this massive organisation for less than the average English championship soccer player makes..

https://sqaf.club/how-much-do-championship-players-earn/

@Cowboy Paddy: you think €100k a year is CHARITY?! Thanks for the laugh

@Ailbhe: that job is a poison chalice. It needs someone who has fixed the same problems in a health system elsewhere. And to get a person like that you need to pay top dollar.

@Ailbhe: 100k, are joking? Nobody qualified would take the job for 100k, or even 400k. Anyone in private industry in charge of a similar sized organisation would be getting 20 to 50 times his current salary. Maybe far more.
People need to be realistic here. Altruism doesn’t exist at that level.

@Ailbhe: It is at that level, just knowing the type of skills needed for the job (to do it right). It would be like trying to sign Messi for Finn Harps…

Do you understand the role? The level of experience, the investment into there reputation… You think they should work for less than Contract Software Developer in the private business…

Do you expect to pay a few grand for a Ferrari as well… This job entails a 70+ hour week, severely high pressure, huge family support (i.e. your partner might not be able to work full time),…

Sorry but work close to these roles and you know the amount of effort and sacrifice it takes to do the role right and it becomes far clearer…

@Ian McDonald: I think the biggest thing about the job is making the right appointment. Reid never struck me as someone who was commited to change and just seemed to go through the motions to appease people. I think a lot of the appointments are made on the basis that the person wont make to much noise and upset the wrong people.

@Cowboy Paddy: your comment reminds me of the time we paid bankers loads of dosh. They still managed to screw us all up in bankrupting the country and charge us higher interest rates than the European norm. The tracker debacle is another diasster, where people lost their family homes.
Overall, highly paid professionals does not always equal / guarantee a highly efficient health service.
From recent personal experience, the health professionals, doctors/nurses are absolutely brilliant and caring, but most public administration across not just the health service is very, very poor / un-caring in this country. I do wonder why ?

@Cowboy Paddy: We paid the market rate to bank CEOS and they did an excellent job in bankrupting the country.

@Ailbhe: where are you going to find someone with those abilities for €100k per year ? If they have those kinds of abilities it’s guaranteed they are already employed and likely making 3x or more that amount. Easy to say ” someone not in it for the money”, but seriously, someone willing to take a 65% or more pay cut to take on a thankless job where they will be accused of all sorts by the loon squad should another pandemic arise ? Ain’t happening !!

@Ailbhe: neither did he – not even a health care profession .. he had no healthcare experience but was CEO — joke – but the person waiting on poor healthcare is not laughing .

@Paul Crowley:
You know banks are private companies and the Irish tax payer doesn’t control what they get paid…
Are you proposing that the Irish people now control the salaries of people in private companies? So how does this work? Do we dictate what bank clerk or a bar man can make too…

How do we know how much people should make? Who do we think will decide? Anyone we think is making too much we can go in and cut there salary… So we would get a salary list from a Google , Intel, Kerry Group…. and out with the Red Pen, we will say how much they are getting…

@Dublin sunrise:
Old Boss told me once ‘Pay Peanuts…’
What do we expect… One of the toughest management jobs in the world and you want a person to come in at about 1/10th of the market rate..
We were lucky anyone applied and beggers can’t be choosers..

@Dublin sunrise: Why would the CEO need to be a healthcare professional or even have healthcare experience ? They are not performing medical procedures, they are managing the entire organisation. People with relevant experience are managing the clinical side.

@Caoimhghin Whyte:
Irish Banks salaries actually are good bit less than in London… That is one of the reasons, better salary and conditions in UK with less hassle.
I totally agree that high pay doesn’t mean high quality but low pay usually guarantees poor quality.. Why would someone work for less than their market value… What we are saying to the person from the start is we think you are worse than you actually are… Sorry I don’t work like that and I am in the change management business, you just can’t start with that level of expectation…

I also agree with you on the public administration… I have for years advocated a far more IT focused approach… I was actually in the Dail in 2007 and said to two senators at the time, if you went into a bank and asked for €200 and they asked for you bank book and they updated by hand and then they opened a big ledger in front of you and changed your account there. You would close your account right there and then, but we accept that in our health service. We have not moved much from there since then but there are other reasons for that..

@Tommy Roche: it would help if he had an idea Re working in the system before becoming CEO . Whatever qualification if any got him this job — he didn’t improve anything – now the hse is just as bad if not worse .I was patient and I would prefer to die than be admitted to a dublin hospital again.

@Ailbhe: No one qualified to do the job with relevant experience would take it for that salary.

@Ailbhe: For that level of responsibility, the experience, qualifications and expertise to do the job right absolutely no one would do it for 100k. That’s a reality and it’s an unrealistic expectation to think otherwise. We need to pay a proper salary and get someone who is actually good at their job.

@Cowboy Paddy: except that during his whole tenure Reid appeared to be even more lost than a Finn Harps reserve team player would be on a match day at Camp Nou playing Real Madrid.

@Ailbhe: how can anyone fix a political potato.

@Alex Marquis:
Slightly unfair there… He did manage COVID response better than most countries…
But the rest makes my point… We expected Mr Reid to save the HSE… Are we serious… His CV was not of a high flying CEO… The guy was a underground cable jointer in 2005.. Think about that… We expected him to save the CV…
Paul Reid previous job was Fingal Chief Executive, I think…

Honestly this Paul looks like one they got for the money, not targeting of a A lister to come in… That is not Paul’s fault, look at the people that complained what he made…

Imagine if we found the best guy for the job but he cost €4.2m a year?

@Cowboy Paddy: they are called unions

@Ailbhe: it’s not a lot to be fair to do a job like that. I fully believe you underestimate the job, sure bricklayers and plumbers are on 150k a year now

@Cowboy Paddy: paying the ‘market rate’ means nothing in terms of calibre of person. We used to do that in the banks, remember, and look where that got us ? Linking pay and ability is a fools errand.

@John Moylan:
Can please tell me which Bank CEO the Irish taxpayer was paying before the crash.
What you are saying is… Because a private company in Ireland might have not got their money’s worth 15 years ago in a different industry, we should grossly underpay for a role that we really need done well today…

BTW, running a bank is way easier than running a health service..

Resenting some people making money who do a good job will nearly always work against you… We say it in business in Ireland all the time, they are so worried what the other guy is making they fail to look at how much we are making or saving…

@Ailbhe: So basically you are contradicting your first statement . Emmmmm …..

@Barry Sorensen: You can’t make comparisons with the private sector. In the private sector, if the company results are poor, and the share price drops, you wouldn’t be long, shown the door. Assigned to the bin, never to take up a similar role again. If Paul had delivered a 1st class health system with the huge budget given to him, the Irish public would happily pay millions for his salary. Public sector needs performance based pay.

@Ailbhe: think ur a way out there pay peanuts & u get monkeys

@Barry Ryan:
If we were paying like that, I say Paul wouldn’t have got the job…

Look at his experience coming into the job… He was Chief exec of Fingal County Council, budget about 1% of the HSE, far less complex…

@David Corrigan: Calm down? Snowflakes like you and The Journal deemed it necessary to remove my comment? You and all the other w ankers haven’t got a clue what it entails to fix something that’s been broken for decades.
Blame the government, if you want to point fingers. But hey, you all would do a stunning job yourselves I bet.

@Cowboy Paddy: the head of the NHS is paid £260k (about 300k Euro) the NHS has 1.5 million staff. perhaps that’s a better comparison than soccer players.

@Mick Wall: president of the United States $400,000. Mr. Reid salary is too high for someone who isn’t suitably experienced.

@Ailbhe: so do true

@Ailbhe: tbf 100k is peanuts i know cars sales men making that

@Patricia O’Brien: as useless_as a chocolate teapot… he should_return his pot o gold to Darby O’Gill…!!

@Kevin Conway: He’s a great man for sure,will be sadly missed.

@Gary Carr: yes I have… leading onwards to a death of my mother. It’s not funny but our system is a lot better that most other countries. Its not perfect. I wouldn’t take on his job for twice the money he was on.

@Kevin Conway: You don’t get thanks for taking huge wages and being incompetent, this is the nearest to an Irish sacking we get. Be grateful for it. Watt must go also.

@Kevin Conway: regardless, you referring to anyone who rightly criticises someone who’s on 420k a year of taxpayer money as “keyboard warriors” is absolute nonsense.

@Kevin Conway: Are you for real? Our system isn’t better than a lot of third world countries. By all key indicators we fall well short. This has been highlighted by ECDC and others putting us at the bottom of most lists in EU.

@Kevin Conway: well he did well, earning in excess of €850k.

@Toon Army:
You mean 13th… That has been the general area for a while…
https://www.joe.ie/fitness-health/ireland-placed-pretty-high-new-global-healthcare-system-ranking-588830

I don’t think we are that high but we are a lot better than some make out…

@Gary Carr: I spent 15 hours on a trolley on 2 different occasions in the Lourdes hospital in Drogheda, and I’m dying with terminal cancer, says it all really!!

@Kevin Conway: I’m waiting for all the Stockholm Syndrome victims to talk him up on how amazing he is..

@Kevin Conway: praise for the pandemic is great but is that what he is getting well paid to do ? That’s his job.

@The Observer: HA!!

@The Observer: the junior doctors aren’t emigrating because of overwork. they are emigrating because of poor postgraduate training. and training structures.

@Sarah Lou: funny then we done very well in covid compered to a lot of countries & thats not me saying that its a fact so go get your info before making coments

@Sheila McNulty: Are you sure its me who doesnt have my facts!! Why is tony gone and Mr Reid leaving too…. cos we did so well!! We had some of the harshest lockdowns in the world. We failed our elderly and our medically vulnerable. The finance staff working from home were given the vaccine before those who were literally dying from covid. The elderly were discharged with covid from acute hospitals causing mass outbreaks and deaths. We have yet in 2022 over 2 years since the first case, built a new hospital. They havent even broken the covid v non covid patients correctly in my local hospital. What fact is it that I have missed Sheila? Oh sorry you are right, I have not even brought in the state of the current health service, the people on lists upon lists to see consultants. The fact people are dying of their condition while on a waiting list for review for several years. I mean I am waiting to hear the facts ive missed but Mr Reid is the boss of ALL of that above there, go on hit me with them…

@Una Dunphy: No future car÷r plans at present. Read he is burnt out.

@Ciaran O’Mara: highly educated does not necessarily mean better qualified. I know plenty of PHd educated people who lack common sense. What’s needed is transformational leadership. Not cuts to services. A leader who is good at working with others and inspires people to embrace change. Our health service is a weird hybrid between corporatised healthcare and a public system. The goal should be national universal healthcare. I wouldn’t mind increasing my wages and neither would anyone else who comments on here. People begrudging someone success is so Irish.

@Cowboy Paddy: Thinking that cost of children’s hospital is somehow ok because it just 1/10th of the annual budget is nonsense.

By the time it’s done, it will be the most expensive hospital ever built in the world and it’s in a bad location. There’s no excuses for what’s happening with that build.

@Michael McGrath: just words though. The stats don’t lie. In relation to most countries our fatality rate was very small, our vaccination programme was one of the swiftest and most efficient in the world. And no, other illnesses weren’t ignored, obviously reprioritisation was required during a health emergency but overall our health service, of which he is head, did an excellent job. Credit where it’s due. That’s not to say that the health service isn’t screwed up in most other areas.

@JedBartlett: in fairness how much of that is down to Reid? That one is on DPER, the OGP and the other civil servants involved in state procurement and supplier contract negotiating process.

@GrumpyAulFella: No there not just words and stats can be made look any way the writer wants them to look. And I never said ignored i said neglected two totally different meanings and the waiting lists and times for treatments and procedures in hospitals even for private patients would prove what I have said is completely accurate.

@Michael McGrath: did you expect that throwing all of the resources that our health service has, as every other country in the world did, to provide critical emergency services to Covid sufferers and the dying as well as servicing the biggest vaccination programme that the state has undertaken, would have a positive effect on queues for other services? This is the inevitable fallout from a once in a generation global health emergency. There isn’t a country in the world that isn’t in the same position re mopping up afterwards now that full services have resumed.

@GrumpyAulFella: 100%. The Unions have the HSE by the short and curlies. He can’t hire and fire as he could in a corporate environment so he was on the road to nowhere unfortunately

@JedBartlett:
Look at it in comparison to his total job. He didn’t pick the site, it was pretty much mandated to him…
This is the thing… Reid should have been running a health service, not in the building trade… This job should have been given to another government dept like Office of Public Works and HSE should have been just a client.. This is just one of those things that are wrong…
Reid is not building the hospital… Politicians had pretty much decided where it was going to be…
There is a difference between Operational management and these types of projects…