JUST OVER 1,000 nurses and more than 80 doctors or dentists are set to leave the health service in the run-up to the introduction of changes to public service pension arrangements at the end of the month, new official figures show.
Separately last night it emerged that 222 staff of the Revenue Commissioners are to retire.
Those leaving the public service after February 29th will do so on inferior pension terms, prompting an exodus of thousands this month.
The Health Service Executive said last night that overall 2,022 staff either had already or would retire in the period between the beginning of January and the end of February.
About 1,700 other health service staff left in the months just before last Christmas.
Figures released by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin show that this includes one commissioner, 10 principal officers and 43 assistant principal officers in the Revenue Commissioners.
A total of 214 personnel are also to leave the Department of Social Protection, according to the Minister’s figures.
Across the Civil Service 1,066 personnel are to retire by the end of the month.
In answer to parliamentary questions the Minster also said that the fall in staffing numbers would generate savings on the exchequer’s pay bill of €2.5 billion in gross terms by 2015.
Critics have argued that the net savings will be considerably less when pension costs and loss of superannuation and health levy contributions are taken into account.
In its new breakdown of those retiring, the HSE said that 729 personnel were to leave the country’s acute hospitals while 300 personnel providing mental health services were also to go.
The new HSE figures also showed that 196 staff working in mental health services will have gone by the end of the month.
A total of 298 personnel working in services for the elderly will leave in the first two months of the year while 272 staff in primary care services will also retire in the same period.
A regional breakdown of the figures showed that acute hospitals in the HSE West region will lose 221 personnel in the first two months of the year.
Overall nearly 8,000 staff across the public service are expected to retire before the expiry of the Government’s “grace period” on February 29th under which their pensions and retirement lump sums will be based on the salaries which applied before the introduction of pay cuts over recent years.
A Government spokesman said last night that “transition teams” had been informally established to deal with the fallout from the departures of large numbers of public service staff.
He said that these teams, which were first announced by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on Sunday would be drawn from existing workforce planning groups.
When pressed the Government spokesman said that the transition teams had been established before Sunday but could not say exactly when they were set up.
The Government spokesman said that the transition teams would be formally established at the Cabinet meeting next week
Fianna Fáil suggested that Mr Kenny’s claims to have established the transition teams to manage the departure of public service personnel was “a figment of the Taoiseach’s imagination”.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the Government had been aware of the threat posed to public services by the retirement of large numbers of staff for a year but that it was “increasingly clear that the Government has completely failed to get ready for this exodus”.
