Madam, - A €650,000 salary for the chief executive of the VHI? When I read this, I nearly had a heart attack, but am holding off until I change my policy over to another health insurance provider. - Yours, etc,
CAROLINE MASLIN, Lynnderry Court, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
Madam, -Please tell me that the VHI is joking, and not treating us as idiots, when it says it needs to double the salary level for its new chief executive to get the right person for the job.
I believe there are plenty of very capable managers in Ireland who would be happy to take on the challenge of the job for a salary more in line with that announced by a review body only this week.
Just what would this new chief executive be doing to warrant such a huge increase? What would he or she do that the incumbent is not doing? As a VHI customer I find it impossible to understand that three people have applied for the job, presumably on the basis of a job specification that had a salary within an approved range, and are now suggesting that they wouldn't take it unless the salary is doubled.
When I read this kind of report and compare it to the salary review for the Taoiseach and Ministers that evoked such outcry, I just feel angry and feel that people like me are being treated as idiots.
It seems inevitable that if the new VHI chief gets €650,000, then his line managers immediately below him will also get some kind of relative increases. And if that happens, that will have knock-on effects elsewhere in the public sector. Where will it all stop? And fundamentally, are such executives really worth those kind of salary levels? Are they really that good?
Please don't say that if they don't get these salaries then they'll go to the private sector where "the market" will set the rate. There are plenty of good executives who could do the job, and for whom a rise to €300,000 would be very attractive. - Yours, etc,
ED McDONALD, Gleann na Smol, Blackrock, Co Dublin.