Drumm advisers earn more than €2m
TWO of departing health chief Brendan Drumm's controversial kitchen cabinet of personal advisers will quit the Health Service Executive (HSE) in autumn after earning more than €2m.
Karl Anderson and Maureen Lynott's contracts will not run out until the end of October, though Prof Drumm will have left at the end of his five-year contract in August.
His successor, former Eircom executive Cathal Magee, who will take over as the €320,000-a-year head of the HSE in September, has been told the controversial system of personal advisers will end.
Figures obtained by the Irish Independent reveal that at the end of last year Ms Lynott, had earned more than €.1.1m since her appointment in 2005.
Prof Drumm's personal press adviser Mr Anderson got in the region of €955,000 since 2005.
Ms Lynott is set to earn a further €200,000 this year, with Mr Anderson taking home another €180,000.
When Prof Drumm became the first chief executive of the fledging HSE in 2005 he insisted that he bring his own "reform team".
These included Mr Anderson; Ms Lynott; John O Brien, head of St James's Hospital; Sean McGuire, a doctor involved in founding GP co-ops; and Tommie Martin, head of Comhairle na nOspideal.
Mr O' Brien has remained on his salary of a hospital chief executive of more than €100,000. Mr McGuire received €420,000 between 2005 and 2007 before he returned to the private sector.
Mr Martin, who was on a salary of around €190,000, was National Director of the chief executive's office, but he has since left. He and Mr Anderson were involved in a public row in 2008.
Mr Anderson was guaranteed a basic €163,000 to work 135 days a year, with €1,207 paid for any extra work. Ms Lynott is on a basic salary of €182,250, with overtime payments of €1,350.
She has been involved in drawing up the system to calculate how much hospitals are getting consultants to confine their work on private patients under their new contract.
She was also involved in devising the hospital performance league tables.
- Eilish O'Regan and Shane Phelan
Irish Independent
