Industry and Employment Correspondent
Fifteen Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors each received overtime payments of over €100,000 in 2020, with one working up overtime of over €134,000, according to Freedom of Information documents released by the HSE.
The figures show that the HSE spent €142.7m on overtime for doctors, nurses and midwives last year.
Unions representing doctors and nurses warned that the high levels of overtime disclosed in the figures reflected a serious problem of understaffing in the health service.
However, the HSE stressed that increased absences and service demands triggered by the pandemic had significantly impacted on the requirement for overtime in 2020.
The highest-paid Non-Consultant Hospital Doctor (NCHD) was a Specialist Registrar based in Cork, who earned €213,026 when their overtime of €134,017 was added to basic pay of €79,008.