- NEWS
Martin wades into abortion debateAs the Dáil committee hearings continue on the abortion bill, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has waded into the debate saying it is important that Christian believers "be, and seen to be, on the side of life, especially when life is most vulnerable".
Payment cuts see families pay rent shortfallLimits on rent supplement payments set by the Government are forcing thousands of families to make undeclared top-up payments to landlords to secure places to live.
- WORLD
Anger as North Korea launches another missileNorth Korea fired a short-range missile from its east coast, a day after launching three more of these missiles, a South Korean news agency said.
How Star Trek predicted the futureWHEN Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up the concept of a television show based in the unexplored universe of Outer Space in 1964, the world was a very different place.
- BUSINESS
Warnings over future of eurozoneThe eurozone is heading towards a break up unless there are moves towards much closer political and fiscal union, according to chief economist with State Street Global Advisers, Chris Probyn.
Bruton defends corporate tax rateIreland will be able to maintain its current corporation tax code in the face of international pressure to prevent multinational corporations avoid paying their fare share of tax, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton said yesterday.
- SPORT
Mayo’s statement of intentGalway 0-11 Mayo 4-16 Five minutes to go in Salthill yesterday and James Horan was still cajoling his men to sew it into Galway.
Wilkinson inspires Toulon to gloryASM Clermont Auvergne 15 Toulon 16 Not for the first time this season, a matchday performance and the result have made a mockery of the statistics.
- LIFESTYLE
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Breaking stories
Public sector pays out €1bn in perks
By Catherine Shanahan
Public sector workers boosted their earnings by an average of €8,862 last year through a series of allowances and overtime payments exceeding €1bn.
A trawl of figures across 34 government departments and agencies shows 22,000 members of staff were paid €10,000 or more on top of their salaries.The biggest overtime and allowance bill was for the HSE at almost €600m — with 8,781 staff earning more than €10,000 each on top of their wages.
The bill for gardaí was the second largest at €295m — with 9,594 staff earning more than €10,000 each in overtime and allowances.
The third-biggest bill was from the prison service at €85m — with 1,920 staff earning more than €10,000 each on top of their normal pay.
While the average maximum individual payment came in at almost €32,000, one HSE employee received an additional payment of €153,250.
The HSE also paid €11.6m to retired staff for services in 2011. The figure relates to “salary and interviewer payments to retired HSE staff”, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s annual accounts 2011.
The HSE was unable to shed further light on the payments at the time of going to press.
John McGuinness, chair of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, said the HSE “didn’t seem to be able to throw up information as readily” as other bodies and that the PAC intended to train its focus on the executive as part of its inquiry into the 1,100 allowances that currently exist. “The HSE is a priority. We asked recently how many people were on different allowances and they couldn’t identify the numbers in some areas,” he said.
Mr McGuinness said they will be examining all allowances but that they were more interested in those given to better paid staff, where they were clearly not part of core pay.
“We want to protect the lower paid. The kind of thing we’ll be looking at is the €3,000 paid to a hospital consultant for further education on top of the €250,000 he’s already getting,” Mr McGuinness said.
Last week, the Irish Examiner revealed that plans to abolish 88 allowances paid to public sector workers will yield savings of just €30.5m — less than half that promised for this year by Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin.
The C&AG report also showed the use of retired staff is widespread across the departments and agencies.
Agriculture, Food, and the Marine paid €78,492 to a retired civil servant, in receipt of a civil service pension, who was re-engaged on a fee basis.
Seven retired civil servants in receipt of civil service pensions were re-employed and paid directly by the Office of Public Works at a total cost of €148,438.
A spokesperson for the OPW said this was “to ensure continuity of service provision, pending the filling of the posts through redeployment and/or open competition”.
The Department of Justice paid €206,458 to 19 retired civil servants in receipt of civil service pensions, whom they rehired. Meanwhile, the Department of Education paid 19 retired staff, rehired at a total of €91,673.