Top-up payments revealed at hospital

A NUMBER of senior managers at the country’s largest hospital, St James’s, receive extra earnings on top of their State-funded salaries, it has emerged.

The hospital confirmed the extra payments for the first time yesterday, indicating that the practice is much more widespread in the health sector than previously thought.

The Dáil Committee of Public Accounts now intends to carry out an inquiry into such top-up payments around the country.

St James’s Hospital said that one member of its senior management team was paid an allowance of €10,800 for acting as secretary to its board on top of his basic salary.

The hospital said the same manager also received €30,000 as a part-time lecturer at Trinity College Dublin.

It said another senior executive got €35,000 as a part-time lecturer at Trinity. The hospital said the funding for lecturing came from the payroll of Trinity College, and the positions were not held “ex officio”.

St James’s is the latest public hospital to reveal details of additional payments to senior managers.

Up until earlier this year, the official position of the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health was that senior executives of State-run and voluntary hospitals got a maximum of €145,959 a year. However, The Irish Times reported last March that three executives at St Vincent’s Healthcare Group were paid additional money for private work on top of their public commitments.

Last week the health watchdog Hiqa, in a report on Tallaght Hospital, highlighted sizeable top-up payments made to managers there, including an additional payment of €150,000 in one case.

Chairman of the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts John McGuinness said last night it would be seeking details of the service contracts between the State and voluntary hospitals when the HSE is called before it shortly.

It has also emerged that the HSE rehired 37 individuals who retired before pension changes came into force at the end of February.