Major lump-sum retirement payments are necessary to attract the top talent to Ireland’s health service according to a Dublin hospital consultant.

Beaumont Hospital Professor Bill Tormey was speaking after it emerged that at least 17 HSE consultants were handed retirement payments of more than €250,000 this year.

According to details released under the Freedom of Information Act, the HSE paid out more than €71m in retirement lump sums in the first nine months of this year.

On Late Breakfast with Mark Cagney this morning, Professor Tormey said the “very substantial” payments are necessary.

   

“To get down to the money, the bottom line is that we are in the Anglophone world and we are competing with Australia, Canada, the US and England In essence,” he said.

“The salaries over there are bigger than they are here at the moment. We used to be up high but we are now after the FEMPI and all the rest a few years ago, we are actually quite a lot lower.”

Consultants

He said the “very high” payments are needed to attract the best talent to Ireland.

“It is hugely competitive to get a consultant job in a Level Four hospital in this State thanks be to God,” he said.

“The standard is very high and if you want anybody to come back here after they have been finely trained and polished up with fellowships etc. overseas, then you have to pay them accordingly.

“If you don’t you won’t get them. It is a simple as that.”

Under the consultant agreement with the HSE there are three types of contract:

• Category A is the highest paid; however, it does not allow the consultant to carry out any private practice.
• Category B allows private practice within the consultant’s designated hospital and carries a lower salary.
• Category C carries the lowest salary but has no restriction on private practice.

Professor Tormey noted that all public servants get a retirement payment and the consultant payments are “very, very high” because they are paid high salaries.

“If you are a civil servant, you get a lump sum the day you retire and it depends on what your salary is,” he said. “That is the way it is and that is the way it has been for decades.”

Cost of living

He said consultants also need to consider the cost of living in Ireland, claiming that people earning €120,000 a year in Ireland are “not rich.”

“You are not rich because look at the cost of houses and the cost of schools in reality and you can talk about sending your kids to public schools but then is voluntary contributions and everything else and that is the way of the world here,” he said.

“The cost of housing feeds into all of this because the cost of housing is ridiculous.”

According to the CSO, the average full-time salary in Ireland is nearly €49,000.

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