The CEO of the St Vincent's Healthcare Group earns just under €293,000 per annum, including €136,591 in a salary 'top-up', the Group has revealed to the HSE.

The hospital group has finally broken its silence on exactly what some of its senior staff earn in top-ups, in a letter to HSE Director General Tony O"Brien.

The CEO, Nicholas Jermyn's top-up comes from income from St Vincent's Private Hospital, which is part of the Healthcare Group. Included in his pay is a €19,796 car allowance. Mr Jermyn's pay is higher than that of the HSE Director General.

His publicly-funded salary is €136,282, which is the current recommended salary for CEOs of larger public hospitals.

The St Vincent's Director of Finance earns €140,876, including €32,544 in a top-up from the private hospital, while the Director of Nursing gets €96,405, including an €14,853 top-up from private hospital funds.

In addition, the Group says there is a fourth executive who is currently on secondment to the HSE, and three other (unnamed) people who are in receipt of taxable income from private sources, totalling just over €28,000.

The hospital says this does not come from not charitable donations, and says it is currently addressing this pay 'through established mechanisms'.

The fourth executive getting extra pay from private sources was Bill Maher, who is currently head of the new hospital group in the west of Ireland and is earning in excess of pay guidelines for hospital CEOs, although the extra pay was in this case approved by the Department of Health.

St Vincent's Healthcare Group comprises St Vincent's public and private hospitals as well as St Michael's Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.

The Group, which had until now refused to reveal details of its top-ups, and has been strongly criticised for its stance by the Public Accounts Committee, says it will meet with the HSE in early January to discuss compliance with pay policy. The HSE says St Vincent's it is not fully in compliance with pay rules.

The hospital group's latest letter to the HSE reveals that more executives than it previously indicated are getting top-ups.

St Vincent's has stressed that none of its top-up payments come from charitable sources.

The hospital group's letter said it was in a position to fund the extra  remuneration as it had a source of private income from the operation of St Vincent's Private Hospital.