Nurses to get pay rise after complaint to European Commission

Two midwives are to receive a pay increase and backmoney after the State decided not to contest potential infringement procedures being brought against it by the European Commission over how a salary cut was applied .

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the HSE had confirmed it intended to reverse a decision to appoint the two midwives on a pay scale which was 10 percent less than the rate which had been in place prior to the beginning of January 2011.

The INMO has said the move could have far reaching implications for other public service staff affected by a decision by the then government to introduce a 10 per cent reduction in entry pay rates for staff appointed after the beginning of January 2011.

Some senior Government sources have, however, disputed that the move could have significant knock-on implications given that Government planned to merge the pre and post 2011 salary rates under the terms of the Haddington Road agreement.

The two midwives were given incremental credit for time they had spent working in the UK prior to entering the Irish health service. However they were placed on the reduced pay scale for new entrants which applied from January 1st, 2011.

The INMO said it had appealed the decision and took the matter to the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court before subsequently lodging a complaint about the case with the European Commission in February 2013.

The complaint brought by the two midwives to the European Commission centred on an alleged breach of the freedom of movement of workers directive arising from how the reducedpay rate was applied in their cases.

In autumn 2014 the European Commission told the Government it intended to take infringement procedures which could eventually result in the case being brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union.

It is understood that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform decided not to fight the case and instructed the HSE to make the additional payments to the two midwives.

The INMO said that on Tuesday the HSE had given a commitment to “full reversal and retrospection (of payment) to the two workers”.

The union said it would now ask that the Department of Health and the HSE ensured the correct salary was in place for other staff in a similar situation to the two midwives at the centre of the case.

It said it also wanted the decision “to be made known to nurses working in the EU, particularly in the UK, whom the the HSE and the Department of Health need to attract back to the health service here”.

INMO industrial relations officer Patsy Doyle said this was one development which "would attract back the previously disenchanted nurse who left Ireland in response to the graduate programme (under which they received less than the official staff nurses rate)".

“This is a landmark victory for our members who had the courage and tenacity to challenge an incorrect pay scale which breached their rights as EU citizens.”

“We will now reach out to all other disadvantaged INMO members and demand that their salaries are reviewed and upwardly adjusted.

“We are emerging from an extraordinary period of restriction in the Irish health service. Ireland needs to welcome back the EU diaspora to fill nursing and midwifery vacancies.”