Leo Varadkar says ‘the market has spoken’ on HSE wage levels

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has this morning said "the market has spoken" in relation to HSE wage levels and Ireland was now having difficulty competing with other jurisdictions for staff.

Mr Varadkar was responding to The Irish Times story that salary was one reason former HSE director Tony O’Connell resigned unexpectedly after nine months in his €147, 549 job.

“Tony’s departure was a big loss to the health service. I was very fond of him. Sorry to leave him go. As you’ll know from the letter he left for a number of reasons.

“The main reason was of course personal, the fact that his wife got a job in Australia but yes the salary was a factor too.

"And it is the case that salaries in the Irish health service not just at consultant, nursing but also management level, are now at or slightly below our competitors in England or Australia so it does make it difficult to compete for senior managers with the NHS for example and also with America and Australia."

Asked what he proposed to do about HSE salaries he said his "hands are tied" at the moment because salaries were bargained centrally and it was really the responsibility of the Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin.

“But there’s no question that we’re having difficultly competing with the NHS and other jurisdictions for highly qualified managers. We’re also having difficulty competing with the private sector for them,” he said.

Mr Varadkar said proposals from left wing parties to oppose increases in the higher rate of income tax should be avoided because, “then we will be left with either a very junior or very low quality management”.

Asked if he would like to see HSE wages to go up across the board, he said he would prefer any spare money to go towards services rather than salary increases.

“But the truth is the market has spoken. It is possibly for health service staff from management levels and also from clinical levels to get better salaries overseas.

“My absolute preference is that any additional funds should go into additional services but we’d need to leave some space for wage increases in order to hold staff.”

The Minister was speaking at the launch of a new innovation centre for personalised cardiovascular care developed by The Heartbeat Trust.