CEO of Irish Cancer Society to take €10k pay cut

Latest: Health Minister Leo Varadkar has said he is open to considering extra financial supports for organisations such as the Irish Cancer Society.

Update 1.30pm: Health Minister Leo Varadkar has said he is open to considering extra financial supports for organisations such as the Irish Cancer Society.

"We already provide funding to the Irish Cancer Society to provide funding for the transport they provide for patients to help them to get to their appointments," he said.

"We'd certainly be open to further discussions as to how we might increase funding for those services."

Earlier:

The CEO of the Irish Cancer Society has confirmed that he will take a €10,000 pay cut.

John McCormack's salary will be reduced to €135,000 a year.

It comes after strong backlash against the organisation this week after its partially reversed decision to abolish its programme of supports for families with cancer.

John McCormack says they will find the money to retain the services for children, and are making cuts elsewhere: “It wasn’t the only scheme that we had targeted, we had looked throughout the organisation for savings

“We made savings in our staff cuts for example. We are not replacing people who are on maternity leave, we are not replacing people who have left the organisation. So we have €750,000 of savings in staff costs.”