THE HSE HAS informed St Vincent’s University Hospital that its funding will be cut by 20 per cent from this Friday if it fails to take the neccessary steps for compliance with public pay policy.

Last week the HSE revealed that five hospitals and charities were still not compliant, while 27 agencies submitted business cases for keeping the allowances paid to staff. The five non-compliant agencies were told they would be sanctioned with funding cuts if they did not show they were compliant.

This evening, it was confirmed that four of them have now responded to the HSE’s correspondence and are deemed as being in compliance. These are St James’s Hospital, Brothers of Charity South and South East, and St John of Gods.

However St Vincent’s is still regarded as being “not in compliance”.

In its statement this evening, the HSE said:

The HSE has been in correspondence with the St Vincent’s University Hospital today in order to specify what they need to do in order to come into compliance. Should they fail to meet this requirement, the HSE will proceed with a 20 per cent funding withhold with effect from 21 February 2014.

The HSE stressed that this funding withhold will not result in a reduction of services for patients at the hospital.

In an Oireachtas Committee hearing last month, the head of the St Vincent’s Hospital group Noel Whelan said the group would “swing around to compliance”. This follows revelations that the group’s CEO was paid an additional €136,500 on top of his HSE salary and a number of other high level staff were also in receipt of additional payments.

Read: Five hospitals and charities still not compliant with pay policy>

Read: St Vincent’s Hospital CEO paid €136.5k on top of HSE salary>