More than 1,000 HSE staff earned over €150k last year

More than 1,000 HSE employees earned salaries in excess of €150,000 last year according to the health body’s latest annual report.

Of those, 24 earned more than Tony O’Brien who, for a salary of €185,000, is charged with overseeing the entire health service as the HSE’s director general.

In total, the HSE paid out €4.91bn in wages in 2015, up from €4.8bn in 2014. That meant wages last year accounted for more than a third of the HSE’s total €13.9bn expenditure. It had an operating deficit of €7.9m at the end of 2015.