Former St Vincent’s Hospital chief got €575,000 termination package
THE former chief executive of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group in Dublin – who was at the centre of a salary topups row in recent years – received a termination payment of €200,000 and €375,000 towards his occupational pension fund, the Irish Independent has learned.
The deal was made by the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group with Nicholas Jermyn after his contract as group chief executive was terminated.
Mr Jermyn’s group role had involved being chief executive of St Vincent’s public hospital, St Vincent’s private hospital and St Michael’s Hospital in Dún Laoghaire.
The group is owned by the Sisters of Charity, which is among the religious orders that owe funding to the Staterun redress scheme for adult survivors of child abuse.
After the publication of the Ryan report in 2009, detailing the level of abuse in religious-run institutions, the Sisters of Charity pledged €5m but at the end of 2015, just €2m of this had been realised, the Comptroller and Auditor General reported.
The group chief executive role ended after it was revealed many highly paid HSE-funded managers were getting financial top-ups to their public salaries in breach of public service pay rules.
The St Vincent’s Healthcare Group said the payments to Mr Jermyn, when his contract as group chief executive ended in June 2014, came from its private commercial income and no money received from the HSE to fund its public hospitals was used.
He had resigned from his post of chief executive at St Vincent’s public hospital two months earlier. Mr Jermyn was then re-employed by the group the following September and is currently director of strategy.
A spokesman for the group declined to elaborate on the details of Mr Jermyn’s occupational pension and how this was linked to his public service pension.
The payments were set out in the group’s accounts lodged with the Companies Office, he said.
“St Vincent’s Healthcare Group is a separate legal entity concerned with the running of acute hospital services,” he said, in response to questions on the order’s payments to the redress board.
According to the group, as a result of the termination of Mr Jermyn’s contract as group chief executive – none of which related to performance issues – the board agreed compensation with him.
The group originally refused to disclose Mr Jermyn’s salary during the revelations about top-ups, but at the end of 2013 it revealed he was on a package of more than €292,000, including a salary of €136,282 from the public sector and €136,951 in a top-up from the private sector. He also had a privately funded car allowance of €19,796.