{"id":57110,"date":"2025-09-11T11:08:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T11:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57110\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T11:08:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T11:08:21","slug":"limerick-bishop-brendan-leahy-defends-hospital-chief-after-pay-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57110\/","title":{"rendered":"Limerick Bishop Brendan Leahy defends hospital chief after pay rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BISHOP Brendan Leahy, who chairs St John\u2019s Hospital has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/750\/health\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">defended<\/a> its chief executive after her salary was increased in breach of public pay scales.<\/p>\n<p>The board of the city centre hospital signed off on a pay rise for Emer Martin, which brings her earnings to between \u20ac119,571 and \u20ac140,747-a-year.<\/p>\n<p>However, according to the HSE, St John\u2019s is in the H2 category when it comes to what it is allowed to pay staff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/crime-and-courts\/1888623\/limerick-man-charged-at-special-court-with-30-offences-including-seven-burglaries-in-a-day.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick man charged at special court with 30 offences including seven burglaries in a day<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to this scale, a chief executive of a hospital in this grade can earn between \u20ac99,829 and \u20ac106,886.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to hospital staff, seen by Limerick Live, Bishop Leahy, chairman of the board of St John\u2019s, confirmed that the board decided unanimously to increase the salary of Ms Martin, the chief executive.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to a reduction in salary levels in voluntary hospitals like St John\u2019s, which were imposed 10 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>In turn, he wrote: this \u201chas created significant ongoing issues for the voluntary hospital sector in terms of recruiting and retaining chief executives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that St John\u2019s Hospital board, while increasing Ms Martin\u2019s salary honoured its duties to ensure governance of the hospital is at the highest standards.<\/p>\n<p>He also praised the impact Ms Martin has made since her appointment in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe has, like all of you, worked tirelessly since she took up the post. In addition to budgetary challenges, our chief executive has led this hospital through a very challenging period operationally, including the Covid pandemic, which had a huge impact on St John\u2019s, its patients and you, our staff,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Bishop Leahy also pointed to the five-year plan which Ms Martin has led.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are grateful to her for her selfless dedication to her post, as we are to all of you for your commitment to the delivery of exceptional healthcare at St John&#8217;s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BISHOP Brendan Leahy, who chairs St John\u2019s Hospital has defended its chief executive after her salary was increased&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[18,135,475,474,19,17,1844,7587,41260],"class_list":{"0":"post-57110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-limerick","15":"tag-limerick-city","16":"tag-st-johns-cathedral"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57110","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=57110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}