{"id":192165,"date":"2025-11-21T07:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T07:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/192165\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T07:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T07:28:08","slug":"second-hospital-chief-executive-salary-breaches-public-pay-scale-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/192165\/","title":{"rendered":"Second hospital chief executive salary breaches public pay scale \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The salary of the chief executive of the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook<\/a> was increased in breach of the public pay scales.<\/p>\n

This is the second hospital<\/a> to have been found to be non-compliant.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, The Irish Times revealed that the salary for the chief executive of St John\u2019s Hospital in Limerick<\/a> was increased to a higher pay bracket<\/a>, which has resulted in significant tensions between the hospital board and the Health Service Executive (HSE<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Following this, the Department of Public Expenditure asked the HSE to examine salaries of other voluntary hospitals, which tend to be State funded but run by boards or religious institutions.<\/p>\n

Anne Marie Hoey, chief people officer at the HSE, wrote to the board of the Donnybrook hospital on October 9th requesting confirmation that it was complying with the statutory pay rules for its chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese salary scales must be strictly adhered to and employees should not receive remuneration in the nature of pay or allowances in excess of these approved amounts,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cNon-exchequer sources of funding may not be used to supplement approved rates of remuneration.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a response on October 15th, Conor O\u2019Connor, chairman of the board of the hospital, responded, saying the hospital\u2019s chief executive, Deirdre Hogan, was recruited at a higher salary in May 2024 as \u201cno suitable candidate could be sourced\u201d at the correct pay band.<\/p>\n

The hospital is considered \u201cH1\u2033 under the consolidated public pay scales approved by the Department of Health and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.<\/p>\n

Chief executives in the H1 bracket can earn between \u20ac81,444 and \u20ac98,231. However, the hospital recruited its chief executive on a general manager (GM) salary of \u20ac105,604.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe previous incumbent, also at GM grade, was retiring and indeed had postponed his retirement on a number of occasions to facilitate us, a situation that could not continue indefinitely,\u201d Mr O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

Following a board decision on the matter, Mr O\u2019Connor said, the HSE was informed it would be recruiting at the higher pay band in December 2023, and \u201cformal\u201d communication was issued to it about this in April 2024.<\/p>\n

He said the hospital board \u201csanctioned the recruitment given that no other feasible options were available in the circumstances where the CEO role is a key role in the organisation and the person appointed must hold the requisite knowledge and skills for the post\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Connor added that the successful candidate was already a HSE-employee and was on this salary before her appointment to the hospital.<\/p>\n

The correspondence was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

Asked about this noncompliance, a HSE spokeswoman said it and its agencies are \u201cobliged\u201d to implement salaries sanctioned by the Department of Health.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Chief executive of St John\u2019s Hospital salary increased in breach of public pay scalesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere an organisation has appointed its CEO at a rate higher than the sanctioned rate, it has been advised that it is a breach of the pay policy and reminded of the terms of the Service Agreement between the HSE and the organisation regarding its requirement to meet the public health sector pay policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In response to queries, Donnybrook hospital\u2019s chief executive Ms Hogan said the board made \u201cevery effort\u201d to appoint a chief executive in accordance with public pay policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to appoint the CEO at general manager grade was made by the board following an unsuccessful campaign to appoint a CEO at the approved level. The HSE was advised of the position at the time,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Voluntary hospitals have consistently maintained that they are unable to recruit or retain chief executives due to pay cuts introduced in 2015.<\/p>\n

The new bands reduced pay rates for existing chief executives of voluntary hospitals by up to 10 per cent and for new-hire chief executives by up to 25 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The salary of the chief executive of the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook was increased in breach of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,3496,42426,37776,18,2450,7005,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-192165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-department-of-health","10":"tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","11":"tag-donnybrook","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-health-service-executive-hse","14":"tag-hospitals","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115586511880615349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}