Up to 28,000 clerical, administrative and support staff in the HSE are to be offered an early retirement or redundancy package. The €400m plan would fund around 5,000 staff leaving the HSE. Under the scheme, agreed by the departments of Finance and Health as well as the HSE, early retirement will be offered to staff who are over 50 years of age, while voluntary redundancy will be open to staff up to the age of 60. To be eligible, staff in the clerical, administrative or support grades must apply by 19 November and agree to leave the service by the end of the year. The HSE has 17,000 clerical and administrative grade staff and 11,000 support staff. Staff taking the voluntary redundancy package will get three weeks pay per year of service, capped at two years' salary, plus their statutory entitlements. Clerical and administrative staff who apply are guaranteed to be accepted for the package, while not all support staff who apply may be approved. Unions are being briefed on the deal today - it is being put forward as a once-off offer. Voluntary redundancy is provided for under the Croke Park agreement. The HSE currently has over 108,000 full-time staff and a budget of around €14bn a year. Minister for Health Mary Harney said she anticipates huge interest in the early retirement scheme being offered to HSE workers. Ms Harney said she was confident that the HSE could deal with the challenges associated by reducing staff numbers. She said she wished such a scheme could have happened before, but that with the economic climate the time had come now, and that it would help minimise the impact of cutbacks on patient services. The minister said the scheme was aimed at people who would not have to be replaced. SIPTU critical of plan SIPTU vice president Patricia King said the HSE 'seems to have no plan at all' for dealing with the consequences of taking up to 5,000 jobs out of the system by the end of the year. Speaking after a briefing by HSE management on the proposed redundancy scheme, Ms King said unions had been told that the scheme would initially target managerial and administrative grades. Ms King said she had a huge concern that, apart from the detail outlined; the HSE appeared to have no plan at all for 1 January 2011. She said that if you take between 4,000 and 5,000 posts out of the system, and you have no plan for dealing with the consequences of that, then that was 'a very worrying scenario'.
Might see a bit of an uptake on that! 59 year old working in HSE all their working life, €80k + statutory! I'd take that and piss off to Spain! Assuming they had no Mortgage & they still have their PS Pension!
Wonder how long it will take to get their staturory redundancy money? My job closed in July dont expect to see mine till about April.
Id say there could be something in the budget...another scheme to reduce overall public service numbers, not just the health service.