{"id":18290,"date":"2026-06-13T13:07:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=18290"},"modified":"2026-06-13T13:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:07:45","slug":"gifting-of-fees-to-rotunda-consultants-must-be-investigated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/gifting-of-fees-to-rotunda-consultants-must-be-investigated\/","title":{"rendered":"Gifting of fees to Rotunda consultants must be investigated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Not only does this raise questions for Revenue about the taxation of these gifts, it also raises further serious questions for the Master of the Rotunda<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Representatives of the Rotunda hospital should return to the Oireachtas Health Committee to answer questions about the gifting of fees to consultants to deliver babies, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Rice, who is chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s Irish Independent has revealed that there are further issues about the implementation of the public-only consultant contact at the Rotunda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf consultants on the public-only contracts are working at the weekend, and are involved in the delivery of the babies of private patients, they are routinely gifted with sums of up to \u20ac1,500 by consultants contracted to do that private work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs far as we know, this is a practice that is confined to the Rotunda and doesn\u2019t happen at Dublin\u2019s other maternity hospitals because of the way rosters are managed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot only does this raise questions for Revenue about the taxation of these gifts, it also raises further serious questions for the Master of the hospital, Se\u00e1n Daly, and the Board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA spokesperson for the Rotunda told the Irish Independent that this arrangement was \u201cpersonal to the consultants and the hospital is not involved\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven these women are giving birth in the Rotunda and attended by consultants who are employed by the Rotunda and rostered to be there by the Rotunda, this statement is brazen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is particularly tone-deaf given the hospital went to great lengths to facilitate breaches of the public-only contract on the purported basis that their position of employer trumped any other clause in the contract. However, when it comes to this issue, the hospital is clearly trying to wash their hands of any involvement,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have now written to the Oireachtas Health Committee to suggest that we invite the Master of the Rotunda, and members of the Board, back into the Committee to answer questions about all of this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hospital is not the only one with questions to answer about this mess. On Tuesday, Social Democrats party leader Holly Cairns asked the Taoiseach if he had any further concerns about the operation of the public-only contract in hospitals and he failed to answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Taoiseach and the Health Minister should now clarify if they were aware of this latest issue with the Rotunda and if there are any other revelations to come about the hospital\u2019s implementation of the public-only contract.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not only does this raise questions for Revenue about the taxation of these gifts, it also raises further serious questions for the Master of the Rotunda Representatives of the Rotunda hospital should return to the Oireachtas Health Committee to answer questions about the gifting of fees to consultants to deliver babies, according to Social Democrats [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,642,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-padraig-rice","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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