Second candidate rejects job as HSE chief

Catherine Shanahan and Evelyn Ring

Yesterday Professor Brendan Drumm announced he would not be taking on the highest-paid position in the public service, worth up to half a million a year Prof Drumm said he had made clear he wanted to return to his consultant/teaching post as Professor of Paediatrics at University College Dublin, on an annual salary of E194,000, when his five-year stint (with an option of extending it to eight) with the HSE expired.

Prof Drumm said the HSE had not contacted UCD to inquire about the possibility of his return.

“It’s just confusion upon confusion. Who was doing what, I don’t know.”

He said the post of head of the HSE would never be filled by a clinician who had no job to return to.

He set out this demand in a letter to the HSE dated April 12.

Tánaiste Mary Harney said the terms offered to Prof Drumm were “unprecedented” in the Irish public service, and that it would “not be fair to the taxpayer or the patient” to exceed those terms. Labour party health spokesperson Liz McManus said Prof Drumm’s decision not to take the post was a vote of no confidence in Minister Mary Harney.

The Irish Hospital Consultant’s Association said it was unacceptable the Government had two chances to select a CEO and had “come up short each time.”

The Irish Nurse’s Organisation said the direction in which health reform was driven by the political leadership was “questionable.”

The board of the HSE said it was considering the best way forward following its monthly board meeting.