MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has said a prohibition on rehiring health service staff who leave before pension changes are introduced at the end of the month would be “utterly ludicrous”.
Dr Reilly said there would be “strategic” filling of empty positions arising from the departure of early retirees from the Health Service Executive, but conceded he could not yet say how many vacant posts would be filled.
“There’s no prohibition, but sure if there were to be a prohibition then we would find ourselves perhaps without a key person in a key position, thus endangering patients. It’d be utterly ludicrous,” he said. However, he insisted any rehiring of retired staff would be in exceptional cases.
Dr Reilly revealed the most recent information available indicated that 3,815 people will have retired from the health service by the end of the month.
He was responding to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin’s Peadar Tóibín.
Dr Reilly said that, of the total, about 1,700 people had already retired between September and December 2011, with a further 340 having departed in January.
He also released a table showing a detailed breakdown by staff grade, job description and HSE region. HSE West had the largest figure of 1,106. Mr Tóibín had asked Dr Reilly to detail the staff seeking to avail of early retirement.
Fianna Fáil TD Robert Troy asked in a parliamentary question last week if HSE personnel leaving their posts would be asked to sign an agreement that they would not seek re-employment through an agency.
Dr Reilly’s response said that no specific re-employment restrictions applied to those retiring before the end of the so-called grace period, which expires on February 29th.
Yesterday Dr Reilly said: “In the cases where we will be rehiring, our emphasis will be on hiring new staff. It will only be in the exceptional case, for very particular reasons, that we will be rehiring existing staff who’ve retired.”
Asked how many posts would be filled, Dr Reilly said he could not answer that question at the moment but referred to the possibility of making “strategic replacements in order to augment the service”.
The priority was to continue to deliver health services safely, he said.
Dr Reilly also expanded on his comments earlier this week when he said planned operations may have to be postponed as a result of the impact of the early retirements from the HSE.
“I wouldn’t like people to get the impression that there’s suddenly going to be a lull in activity,” he said.
He said the situation might not arise, but it would be better to “take the pressure off” in relation to elective inpatient procedures rather than in the area of acute services, “where people would be acutely ill and in need of immediate care”.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil spokesman on children Charlie McConalogue has expressed concern about “major gaps” in the State’s network of social workers.
He said HSE figures showed 71 social workers of various grades were due to retire by the end of the month.
“This will leave an enormous gap in a system which is already struggling to cope with the demand for its services,” Mr McConalogue said.
He also accused the Government of failing to honour its commitment to deliver 60 extra social workers last year, as recommended by the Ryan report, produced by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
“Instead of filling the gaps in our social care system as recommended by the Ryan report, the Government is now allowing even more gaps to appear,” he added.
