Harney defends €70,000 bonus for ‘fantastic’ HSE chief
News of the performance-related bonus emerged on the same day it was reported that children with arthritis are waiting 13 months to see the country’s only specialists, and that there’s a shortage of 120 cystic fibrosis staff nationwide.
Defending the bonus, which is on top of Mr Drumm’s €371,000 salary, Ms Harney said that when the job was first advertised “it wasn’t easy to find somebody of his level”.
“If Professor Drumm had remained practicing as a clinician, he would have earned substantially more than he has earned in his capacity as CEO of the HSE.”
The Taoiseach hid behind the same defence he used for the golden handshake made to the former Fás chief Rody Molloy.
Brian Cowen said the payment to the HSE chief was made on the basis of “the terms of the employment contract he has which relates to performance bonus as part of his wage structure”.
The payment was described as “madness” and “outrageous” by Fine Gael’s spokesperson on health, Dr James Reilly: “At a time when the country is in a financial crises and there is talk of cutting the children’s allowance, the idea that someone that is on more money than the Taoiseach should get a bonus of this size is highly questionable.”
Labour’s health spokesperson, Jan O’Sullivan, is calling on Ms Harney to ensure the payment is not drawn down.
“This bonus covers the year 2007, a year in which the HSE was beset by controversies over cancer misdiagnosis, outrageous waiting lists, critical shortages of paediatric intensive care beds, delays in the roll-out of cervical cancer screening, and problems with hospital hygiene, to name but a few.
“Now we are to respond to these failures, not by bringing the HSE management to book, but by giving the head of the organisation a pat on the back worth almost twice the average industrial wage,” she said.
Ms Harney was not made aware of the decision to make the payment, which was taken by the HSE board: “I have no responsibility here,” she said.
The €70,000 bonus relates to 2007 but was approved in recent months by the HSE board, despite a freeze on such payments for 2008 and 2009 in an effort to make €1.2 billion in savings.
Although the bonus comes from taxpayers’ money, the HSE press office is still refusing to confirm the exact sum, arguing it is not fair to reveal the earnings of an individual employee.
A letter concerning the bonus payment, sent by Prof Drumm to the HSE board in June 2008, highlights his achievements in “communicating and winning over the people to the need for a new model of care” during 2007.
Despite the €225 million budget over-run in 2007, the board had no doubts about awarding the bonus.
“Quite the contrary in fact. Professor Drumm has done an outstanding job in each of the years since he has been with the HSE since 2005 and he continues to do that,” said Liam Downey, chairperson of the board.
Mr Downey said high profile tragedies including the case of Susie Long (who died after a delay in diagnosing her cancer) and cancer misdiagnoses in Portlaoise were taken into account in approving the bonus: “But many of those issues are legacy issues which had been in the system for many years.”
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