The HSE is spending around €12 million every week on agency staff because of widespread vacancies throughout the health service.
New figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show agencies were paid almost €620 million last year – a 9 per cent increase on 2021. The data, obtained by the Irish Mirror, also shows almost €213 million was spent in the first four months of this year.
Beaumont Hospital consultant Bill Tormey said: “The hundreds of millions of euro spent by the HSE on agency staff begs the question: why?
“There are many answers, including pay and conditions of employment. For the person providing the service to patients and to the organisation, higher pay and greater flexibility is a starting point.
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“The cost per unit of work is higher with agency staff across the board. The HSE has fewer employer responsibilities. There are no pension considerations and the body count of full-time employees, which is limited by the Department of Health, can be circumvented by agency staff.
“For people post-retirement age, there is the avoidance of the cut in pension for those continuing to work in the same job.” A large amount of the agency spend is on nurses, accounting for €144 million last year and nearly €46 million between this January and April.
Other frontline workers, like ambulance and medical staff, accounted for large amounts. But almost €135million was spent on management and administrative agency workers over the 16-month period.
The HSE says the availability of health staff continues to be a challenge and agency workers are used because of that. It added: “This can be for a variety of reasons, including sick absence replacement, both long and short-term; to replace vacancies currently being actively recruited to; to replace maternity leave, etc.”
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