As of June 2017, there were 1,159 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) personnel employed by the HSE at National Director, Assistant National Director, General Manager or Grade VIII level.
Deputy Kelleher said that, at the end of November 2016, when he submitted a previous Parliamentary Question (PQ) on the matter, the HSE responded that there were 1,075 personnel at National Director, Assistant National Director, General Manager and Grade VIII level. “By the end of June this year, that figure had increased to 1,159 – an increase of 84 over the previous 30 weeks or 2.8 managers per week,” said Deputy Kelleher.
“The recruitment of these managers has coincided with staff shortages and deteriorating services elsewhere in the health sector. We are crying out for nurses and consultants in many of our acute hospitals, and figures releases last week revealed a fall in dental surgeons across the country,” he added.
According to the June 2017 figures, there were 16 National Director WTEs, 121 Assistant National Director WTEs, 69 ‘other senior manager’ WTEs, 344 General Manager WTEs and 609 Grade VIII WTEs in the HSE.
When section 38 organisations are included, the total headcount of these senior managerial positions totalled 1,525 WTEs as of June.
In its response to the PQ, the HSE pointed out that “the majority of these posts (64.3 per cent) are specifically located in direct service delivery areas (Acute, Community, Health and Wellbeing and National Ambulance Service), while Health Business Services (including estates, procurement payroll services, accounts payable, general accounting and financial reporting, pensions, recruitment and personnel records management) account for 8.8 per cent.”
