New HSE chief will be paid more than the world’s third largest employer

CATHAL Magee, the Government nominee to become the next chief executive of the HSE in September, is to be paid a salary of €322,000.

That is €17,000 per annum more than the salary scale of David Nicholson, the chief executive of the British NHS in 2009. The salary scale of the NHS chief executive ranges from €305,000 to €312,000, including taxable benefits and allowances. The NHS has a budget of €120bn and, with 1.7 million employees, it is the third largest employer in the world after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Wal-Mart and Indian Railways.

The Government ought to have been well able to recruit a chief executive of the HSE from one of the national health service systems around the world whose standards and competence are such that these would represent an enhancement of what all of us must currently endure.