Just 2,800 to avail of HSE voluntary redundancy

JUST 2,800 people are in line to avail of the HSE’s voluntary redundancy/early retirement scheme — and the number is expected to drop much further in the coming weeks.

HSE bosses had been hoping to get rid of up to 5,000 primarily administrative and managerial staff but also support staff through the cull. The Government set aside €400 million to pay the cost of the redundancy/ retirement packages with staff expected to exit their jobs by the end of December.

The relevant workers over 50 years of age were offered the opportunity to retire early with full pension entitlement according to years of service.

The incentive for the rest was voluntary redundancy of three weeks’ pay per year of service plus statutory.

It became clear that, in spite of more than 7,000 expressions of interest, the goal of eradicating 5,000 roles was not going to be reached and after the deadline for applications was reached, Minister for Health Mary Harney confirmed a total of just 3,775 staff in the health service had initially applied to leave.

In the weeks since that, the applications have been examined and those that were unsuitable have been weeded out.

Furthermore a number of people have, on consideration, decided the packages are now no longer attractive to them.

Now Industrial Relations News says it has been told by well-placed sources that the final number opting to leave under the scheme will be between 1,800 and 2,200.

“In some areas, the current rate of withdrawal of applications is 40% and should this continue, the final number of exits could be as low as 1,800,” the industry magazine said.

It is understood that as few as 1,300 departures are definitely confirmed to date.

At the time, worker representatives said the two-week window for acceptance or rejection was far too short to make a life-changing decision and it now appears workers do not have confidence in the figures they are being presented with.

The potential figure of 1,800 taking up the packages was put to a HSE spokeswoman.

She said: “Those figures do not sound right and we are not expecting final figures for a couple of weeks.

“The latest figure we have for those who are due to leave is 2,800 but there are still people coming in and out.”