Mahony says €45,000 was fees from private patients

The Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr Rhona Mahony has said the €45,000 "privately funded allowance" which a HSE internal audit revealed she was receiving came from fees for seeing private patients.

She said that her remuneration as master was “strictly in line” with her contract and was exactly in compliance with public service pay requirements for her position.

“The €45,000 paid to me, and labelled by the media as a ‘top-up’, is in respect of professional fees from private patients attending the National Maternity Hospital. With regard to this, I have the same contractual terms as all other medical consultants in the Irish health service who have the same contract. The existence of this income has been reported to the HSE in May 2012 as part of a routine confidential internal audit carried out by the HSE. To be absolutely clear, I have never received any additional remuneration from the health service or any other source, including fundraising and charitable donations.”

Asked last night whether the private patients referred to by Dr Mahony were her own private patients, a spokesman said she would not be adding anything to the statement.

'Personally vilified'
Dr Mahony said she had been "personally vilified over the last few days" after details of the additional payments being made to senior health service figures emerged in a Department of Health report. She said this had been "utterly unwarranted".

Separately, the National Maternity Hospital said it paid its personnel “in accordance with their employment terms, with the agreement of the appropriate board sub-committees, and in full compliance with public service pay requirements”.

It said no payments were made to personnel at the hospital from donations either to it or the National Maternity Hospital Foundation. However, the hospital refused to disclose the source of funds used to provide additional payments to other senior executives.

Department of Health files showed a privately funded allowance of €39,000 was paid to the secretary manager at the hospital and a privately funded allowance of €37,500 went to the director of nursing/midwifery.

The board of the hospital said it “fully supports the master and her management team as they continue to work hard to deliver a world-class service to women and babies in sub-optimal conditions”.