THE HEALTH SERVICE Executive has failed to entice enough staff to sign up to its voluntary redundancy scheme – failing to meet its target of securing between 2,500 and 5,000 people for early retirement before the end of the year.

RTÉ reports that 3,700 staff initially expressed interest in voluntary redundancy. However, many then changed their minds following their ‘cooling off’ period.

Now, approximately 1,700 staff still wish to avail of the scheme, which is a major blow to the HSE’s hopes to make savings of €20million annually from 2011.

HSE officials had expected up to 10 per cent of staff to change their minds, but instead over 50 per cent did. RTÉ reports that sources blamed a number of factors for the situation, including measures in the recent Budget and the short time frame for making a decision.

Fine Gael’s health spokesperson James Reilly said that the manner in which the issue was handled had “held a gun to people’s heads”. He said “Not giving people the sort of time to enquire about such a major life decision doesn’t yield the result.”

Tomorrow,  details of applications will be known – including the salary brackets of those availing of the scheme – meaning that overall savings can be calculated.

The Irish Independent reports that the early retirement scheme was aimed initially at managerial and administrative staff, and then at support staff like porters and caterers.

Under the Croke Park Agreement, compulsory redundancies in the health service are not allowed.