Sir, – Consultant pay is unjustifiably exorbitant and should be cut drastically, and not just for new entrants.
There are many well-qualified public service professionals with long years of training who strive to do their jobs well and without this level of over-remuneration or belly aching. Dr Lawler’s farcical letter (September 20th) proffers a scenario of those who will still be earning very large salaries suddenly one day later talking all about emigration. This is an insult to the reality for our struggling families in this country and those that have no choice but emigration. The consultants’ risible letters all self-proclaim high standards of excellence while we know this is not the case for a lot of consultants. These letters appear to confirm their main interest is career and pay, not patients and an interest in the country.
Let them all leave and let us hire those genuinely interested in improving our healthcare, for there is little international appetite for hiring our overpaid consultants from this little island.
They also show complete disregard for the situation of their other colleagues.
I am a researcher at one of the institutes listed in these letters and over the last 15 years have worked in several of the foremost international institutes. However, I am paid less than a quarter of the average consultant. I have no idea if I will continue to have a job when my current grant funding elapses next year, while our society spends huge wages on every single consultant regardless of quality.
I would be extremely grateful to my country if I had a guaranteed job and pay at less than half the proposed new salary for consultants, and would be happy to use the rest to fund my research. Instead of threatening to desert the very public footing the bill can they please return their ludicrous salaries so our society can make much better use of these funds? – Is mise,
Dr DAVID HUGHES,
Price’s Place,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.