Just 2,000 staff take up HSE’s redundancy offer

JUST over 2,000 people have left the HSE under its once-off voluntary redundancy and severance schemes — which had targeted as many as 5,000 departures to save the system €400 million.

A full breakdown of the regional figures, seen by the Irish Examiner, shows the HSE’s plans to significantly reduce staff levels has fallen almost 3,000 people below its goal.

Between November 2, when then Health Minister Mary Harney first offered the scheme to 28,000 workers, and December 31, a total of 2,003 managers and administrators availed of the money-saving plans.