The HSE has sought repayment of €43,229,394 in overpayments to staff since 2020, with €13,812,233 still outstanding at the end of 2024, according to figures released in response to a Parliamentary Question submitted by Deputy Carol Nolan.
The figures cover all full-time and part-time HSE staff, but does not cover staff in voluntary hospitals or those employed by agencies.
Deputy Nolan, in response to the release of the figures, raised concerns over the impact on lower-paid staff who may have unknowingly been overpaid and suffered as a result:
“I think this reply exposes major shortcomings in the HSE payroll system, but at a more specific level I would have deep concern for the ordinary hardworking but lower-paid staff who were overpaid through no fault of their own and who then may have become ineligible for payments like carers or other social protection payments that they were receiving. So on top of the stress of repayments they may also have had to deal with this kind of loss.”
The sums overpaid each year have increased dramatically since 2020, when €5.3 million was overpaid. By 2023, that figure had risen to €12.7 million, before falling in 2024 to €11.2 million.
The number of overpayments made per year also increased considerably, from 2,799 in 2020 to 5,856 in 2023, before falling to 4,803 in 2024.
At the end of 2024, 10,810 staff owed nearly €14 million between them. It’s unclear from the data released if the majority of the money is owed from a relatively small cohort of staff or spread broadly amongst the nearly 11,000 staff with balances outstanding.
For 2024 alone, the HSE sought repayments totalling €11,217,559 across the following categories:
Of this €11.2 million in overpayments, €5,169,415 had been repaid by the end of 2024, leaving the remainder still outstanding.