Sir, – As a health service employee (but not a top HSE executive), I was irked by the headline "Overtime rises about 760% for top HSE executives during the pandemic" (November 24th).
This sensationalist banner is mitigated only marginally by the article content that acknowledges the “valid reasons” recorded for the overtime claims.
Furthermore, when we note the “low base” of prior claims, one might suspect that the prominent use of the percentage change figure was specifically designed to provoke outrage directed at leading occupational health and public health clinicians who have had an enormous role in our pandemic response. I expect better from The Irish Times.
– Yours, etc,
Dr NIALL CONLON,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – I was less surprised to read that overtime increased by 759 per cent between April and September 2020 for the most senior executives, managers and administrators in the HSE than I was to learn that they are paid overtime at all (“Overtime rises 760% for HSE’s top executives”, November 24th).
How much do senior executives have to be paid to move their thinking beyond the idea that theirs is a nine-to-five Monday-to-Friday job so that any additional effort must be paid for and at premium rates?
The HSE’s Health Service Employment Report shows the growth in employment numbers between October 2013 and January 2021. The increase in headcount in the most senior “executive management” roles was from 172 to 364, an increase of 112 per cent. The corresponding increases were 82 per cent in senior management and 62 per cent in middle management. Increases in medical and nursing staffing levels were far lower.
This might suggest to the uninitiated that management numbers have increased enough to eliminate any need for paid overtime.
But the fact that overtime is paid, no doubt at premium rates, is hardly an obvious driver of efficiency.
– Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.