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THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS Committee will have its final meeting on the examination of allowances paid in the public sector today with Tony O’Brien, Deputy CEO/Director General Designate of the HSE.
According to the HSE 2011 Appropriation Account, €122.4 million was paid in allowances, €169.9 million in overtime, €256.6 million in night and weekend payments and €49.9 million in on-call payments to employees. The vast majority of all allowances and overtime were paid to staff in clinical roles.
Total pay for HSE staff for 2011 amounted to €5.051 billion and 41,834 staff were in receipt of an allowance of some kind excluding premium payments for nights or weekends.
Details of 41 allowances payable to HSE staff have been supplied to the Public Accounts Committee. Of these, there was no estimated annual cost for two, while seven are on the list of allowances prioritised for early elimination. Business cases were submitted to the Department of Public Expenditure for 20 of these allowances.
Ahead of the meeting Chairman of the Committee, John McGuinness, said: “As part of our review of HSE allowances, members will have a chance to explore the scope of the allowances being paid to HSE staff; examine the business cases that have been provided for 20 allowances; and question why were business cases not submitted to the department for 21 of the 41 allowance.”
“We will also have a chance to consider how the Irish system of compensating medical staff compares with international systems, including the UK.”
The meeting will begin at 2pm today.
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Examining but actually doing something is another thing. We are a great bunch at examining and creating commitees but implementing on reports findings another story
its sad but your right even if anything is done it will take years and cost millions providing jobs for the boys with the end result nothing was found wrong and the money was just resting in my account
My wife works for the HSE. She’s supposed to be a community occupational therapist but with all the cut backs they have been told to do no travel which makes it hard to assess children in their homes and at their schools and they currently cannot even order paper for the printer. In any organisation there will be waste, but always remember blanket cuts or freezes affect all levels of service.
If they weren’t calling in the office of public works to change their printer cartridges there might be a few bob extra for them to spend on paper.
Ask Aonghus O’Snodaigh or any other Sinn Fein rep to get some free ink cartridges for the printer – I am sure they could spare one or two,
We spend more money per capita on health than many other good health systems like Sweden , Australia UK etc , its plainly obvious there are many inefficiencies in our system that need fixing , it seems to only get people attention now that the health budgets are attracting attention of troika but why in the name of god can a relatively small country that spends so much money on health not get its act together and organise itself to root out so much of the costly waste and concentrate on patient care.
Too much administration. 80 : 20 ratio to direct medical/nursing staff.
Also duplication of services, security, payroll, admin, portering in every small parochial hospital propped up by local TDs.
What kinds of allowances are they talking about? A partial list that names examples would be handy in this article.
Re health & other allowances…instead of ‘gravy train’ can we now call it ‘taxpayer haemorrhage’…no pun intended.
This… I’ve seen first hand how much money is wasted on people taking medication they done need just because it’s free on the medical card!
So lets spend years examining and reviewing meeting and subsequent reviewing then maybe decide to do something about the waste of taxpayers money, Jo and there it is the UNIONS who hold this country to ransom. Sort them and you might have half a chance !!,
Most of the listed allowances are not paid. Worthless charade, systemic reform needed, not pay reform.
Look who is heading it one oh the chief Mandarins,don’t expect to much and you won’t be disappointed .
How about their own obscene allowances ?
oh Jesus draw that line in the sand please….the hse have started numerous initiatives to destroy the professions. they will eventually succeed. Professionals deserve to b well remunerated. No point in years of training otherwise. These allowances need to b reviewed for sure, along with social welfare, pensions, tax breaks, all the rest of it. reform the whole country instead of the current hot topic. The seanaid should b long gone too.
In other words …more cuts on the way for all.
have your say