Advisers to the head of the Health Service Executive, Prof Brendan Drumm, have signed contracts which entitle them to earn up to €1,500 a day.
In addition to getting salaries ranging from €163,012 to €202,500 for working 135 days in the year, three of Prof Drumm's five advisers are also entitled to overtime payments of between €1,207 and €1,500 a day for an additional 27 days.
The figures, released by the HSE under the Freedom of Information Act, show Prof Drumm's five special advisers will cost the taxpayer around €4.5 million, even before overtime, during his five-year term.
Three of the advisers were recruited following a tendering process. The other two were seconded from posts in the health service.
The advisers are Dr Seán McGuire, a GP recruited to advise on the development of primary care services; Maureen Lynott, director of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, who is to advise on performance measurement and value for money; Karl Anderson, who is to advise on communications; John O'Brien, who was the chief executive of St James's Hospital and is now director of the HSE's national hospitals' office, and Tommie Martin, formerly of Comhairle na nOspidéal, and now director of the office of the chief executive officer at the HSE.
The information released and published in yesterday's Irish Medical News, indicates Dr McGuire, Ms Lynott and Mr Anderson are expected to work 135 days per year for a set fee and after that they get a daily overtime rate, equivalent to the daily rate for the first 135 days.
A HSE spokesman said yesterday that if overtime was to be extended beyond 27 days it would have to be approved by the board of the HSE.
Their contracts state the HSE reserves the right to renegotiate the daily overtime rate if additional days are required.
Dr McGuire commands a fee of €202,500 a year and is entitled to a daily overtime rate after that of €1,500. Ms Lynott, who has now also been asked to help with the stalled consultant contract negotiations, is on an annual fee of €182,250 and her daily overtime rate is €1,350. Mr Anderson is on an annual fee of €163,012.50 a year and his daily overtime rate is €1,207.50. All annual fees are exclusive of VAT.
Mr O'Brien and Mr Martin, who were seconded from other posts in the health service, are paid salaries of around €171,706 a year.
The advisers took up their posts in the second half of last year and it is not clear if any of them have yet been paid overtime.
Fine Gael's Dr Liam Twomey said last night:"There is a lot of money being paid out for a reorganisation of the health service that is not working out very well."