Trade union Siptu has asked Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe to declare whether any senior managers in voluntary hospitals and health agencies are exempt from the application of financial emergency legislation.
Financial emergency legislation, known as Fempi, underpinned the various cuts to pay and pensions imposed on more than 300,000 staff across the public service over recent years.
However, Siptu on Monday wrote to the Minister seeking details on how the legislation was being applied in the wake of the controversy surrounding revelations of payments made to senior staff at the St John of God organisation.
St John of God is one of nearly 40 voluntary hospitals and agencies which are funded by the HSE and known as Section 38 organisations. Staff in these organisations are considered to be public servants.
St John of God group chief executive John Pepper last week said his salary was €182,000 a year, paid from private sources.
This is just €3,000 a year less than the salary paid to Taoiseach Enda Kenny or HSE director general Tony O'Brien.
Responding to questions, a St John of God spokesman said: “John Pepper is currently not a Section 38 employee and is not currently in receipt of benefits. Fempi no longer applies to him.”
It also emerged in recent weeks that St John of God had made payments totalling €1.64 million to 14 senior executives to discharge pension and employment liabilities in 2013.
Mr Pepper is understood to have received the largest sum, more than €600,000 from these payments.
In a letter to the Minster, Siptu health division organiser Paul Bell said the union's members in St John of God were subject to the full draconian application of Fempi which had enforced savage cuts on their take home pay.
Siptu submitted 5 questions to the Minister. These included whether senior and middle-ranking staff in any Section 38 organisation were exempt from Fempi and how could staff obtain such exemptions.
Siptu also asked the Minister’s for the official position on whether public service staff in Section 38 organisations should have to report or be accountable to other personnel who were either declared exempt from Fempi provisions by their board or who had declared themselves to be outside the legislation.
Mr Bell said in the letter that Siptu did not want to be confrontational about the issues raised.
However, he said the Minister should consider “the impact of such revelations are having on our members , the majority of whom receive wages of between €25,000 and €35,000 for working unsocial hours in very tough working environments, made even tougher through tightening of resources and (the)staff recruitment pause”.
