The HSE has confirmed four of five hospitals and health agencies threatened with a 20 per cent funding cut for not adhering to public pay policy are now in compliance.
St Vincent’s Hospital is the only facility remaining in breach of the policy and the HSE said it would move to cut funding from this Friday.
In a statement last night it said: “The HSE has been in correspondence with the St Vincent’s University Hospital today in order to specify what they need to do in order to come into compliance.”
It confirmed St James’s Hospital, St John of Gods and the Brothers of Charity South and South East are now in compliance having met a request for further documentation in recent days. “The HSE still regards St Vincent’s University Hospital as being not in compliance”.
All five organisations had been named in a HSE statement last week as part of a process to evaluate compliance with pay policy following revelations surrounding the controversial use of "top-ups" to some senior executives.
Full disclosure
Meanwhile, a number of leading politicians have called on the Rehab Group and other voluntary organisations to make a full disclosure about the salaries paid to their executives. Their comments come in the wake of the disclosure that chief executive of Rehab Angela Kerins is paid a basic annual salary of €240,000.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said yesterday it was time for transparency in relation to salaries in the voluntary sector. He said there had been a change in public perception since the Government took the decision to cap salaries and reduce higher-level pay in the public service. Mr Gilmore said the public found it hard to understand how salaries in the voluntary and charities sector could be higher than in the State sector.
Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin said everyone who received public funds in any organisation should have their salary published in a transparent way.
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald called on Rehab to make information available immediately on other executive salaries following the disclosure of the salary paid to Ms Kerins. “It is ridiculous for them to say they won’t make information available on other salaries. That is not a runner,” said Ms McDonald, a member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). She was “taken aback” at the scale of the salary paid to Ms Kerins, saying it was “quite astonishing” the chief executive of an Irish-based voluntary group earned more than the US president.
Fine Gael Wicklow TD and PAC member Simon Harris also called on the Rehab board to immediately reveal the pay of all its senior staff.
Rehab is due before the PAC in coming weeks.
