‘We were never told anything about this – ever’

EMPLOYEES at the St John of God (SJOG) group have never been told of the worrying pension issues their bosses reported to the Government nearly three years ago.

‘We’ve heard nothing – never,’ a senior member of staff at the organisation’s private hospital in Stillorgan told the Irish Mail on Sunday this week.

The only reason the one-time deficit is now known is because of Department of Health whistleblower, Shane Corr, who has made a protected disclosure to this newspaper detailing the issues. ‘There’s been no circular. Nothing,’ the hospital staff member said. ‘I’m here almost 20 years. I know practically everyone here and we all talk and all that and we’ve never heard this,’ he said.

The hospital employee also confirmed that they had never received annual benefit statements. By law annual statements must be provided to every employee each year.

These statements, had they been provided, would have shown affected staff the contributions being made – or not being made – on their behalf.

‘Any time I had to deal with the accounts it’s a nightmare,’ an employee said. ‘You can never find out who is actually in charge. As for an annual statement – I haven’t seen it.’

Union officials too remained completely in the dark, even though in 2019 SJOG was telling the Government it would recoup underpayments caused by a computer glitch from more than 1,500 current and former employees. ‘F***. That’s a huge issue. There’ll be uproar in relation to that,’ said a union rep at one of SJOG’s publiclyfunded services ‘That’s staggering. We never heard that. There’s no way people are going to pay money back. They just won’t.’

The size of this issue remains to be seen as SJOG have not yet confirmed how much may be involved.

Others at SJOG spoke of persistent scandals involving secrecy and a lack of transparency, saying they did not trust management at SJOG.

‘There were all the directors who gave themselves a boost with top-ups,’ one said.

‘We absolutely knew nothing about that here and it was at a time when they were cutting our salaries and we were getting Christmas cards from them as they all got payouts.’

On Friday, after the MoS approached SJOG, management circulated a letter to all staff.

This appears to be the first time employees have been informed about the existence any past or present issues that may have arisen with the contributions being made to their pensions.

‘I wish to assure all staff that there are absolutely no issues outstanding between Saint John of God Services and either the Department of Health or DPER that could affect their superannuation benefit entitlements,’ the letter from CEO Clare Dempsey reads.

‘From time to time over or underpayments of pension contributions can occur, and in any such circumstances contact will be made with the individual employee concerned and a plan agreed for repayment in accordance with the HSE Policy for Under/Over payments,’ it states.

SJOG have also now acknowledged their failure to provide annual benefit statements for members in the Single Public Service Pension Scheme (SPSPS). A spokesperson confirmed: ‘We are working to resolve this requirement and are planning to issue statements to members of SPSPS in the coming months.’

‘There’ll be uproar over that’