Sir, – The recent focus on the €420,103 salary being paid to HSE director general Paul Reid has somewhat overshadowed the startling revelation that there are a total of 678 non-medical staff in the HSE being paid over €100,000 a year.
While hundreds of thousands of Irish workers have lost their jobs and businesses have had to close, due partly to insufficient intensive-care unit (ICU) capacity, the number of HSE managers earning over 100,000 a year has increased by an astonishing 27 per cent in the same period. No questions are asked of HSE acute hospitals management as to how we have ended up with an ICU capacity that necessitates the longest lockdown in Europe.
Is it not time to start asking whether it is justifiable to give pay rises to the people responsible for allowing this situation to develop?
If the Government has surplus funds, those funds should be diverted to those in the hospitality industry and other sectors that are having to bear disproportionately the financial burden of the failings of Irish health service management. – Yours, etc,
RUARY MARTIN,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.