Retirement, redundancy packages set in stone, says HSE

THE DEPARTMENT of Finance and the HSE have ruled out changes to the terms of the voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes announced last week by the Government for staff in the health service. About 7,000 personnel in the HSE have now expressed an interest in the packages on offer.

Trade unions representing health service staff are unhappy with the terms on offer, the timescale involved in the plan and what they see as a lack of clarity on the part of management as to how services will be maintained for patients if up to 5,000 personnel leave at the end of the year.

Unions yesterday described as “very disappointing” talks held with management at the Labour Relations Commission on the schemes. After three hours of discussions, Impact’s national secretary for health, Louise O’Donnell, said HSE management had refused to allow the terms of the schemes to be referred to the Labour Court. She also said management had been unable to answer simple questions about the entitlements of staff under the schemes.

Siptu’s Paul Bell said the Department of Finance had made it clear that “the package was the package and there could be no further negotiations on it”. He described the talks as “unproductive”, with the exception of discussions on the back-filling of posts left vacant by departing staff. He said management had given a commitment that it would abide by the terms of the Croke Park agreement on this issue.

The HSE’s head of corporate employee relations, Brian Kirwan, confirmed after the talks that management would not refer the terms of the scheme to the Labour Court. “This is a Government scheme, we are dictated, and that is the scheme that is there,” he said.

The parties are to meet again to discuss clarification of terms on Wednesday. They will also hold further discussions next Monday on the HSE’s contingency proposals for maintaining services after the exodus. Staff have until November 19th to apply and must confirm they want to leave by the end of the month. All staff taking the package must leave the HSE by December 30th.

The voluntary redundancy scheme will involve a severance payment of three weeks’ pay per year of service in addition to statutory entitlements, subject to an overall limit of two years’ pay. The voluntary early retirement scheme, open to employees over 50, provides for immediate payment of pension entitlements with no actuarial reduction in respect of payment prior to minimum retirement age. Full lump-sum entitlement will also be paid and will not take into account the salary cuts introduced earlier this year.

Impact said last night it had asked the Labour Relations Commission to insist that HSE management share information about expressions of interest by grade and location and engage with the union over the potential implications for service users and staff left behind.

“It should be possible to agree priority areas if management accept that large-scale redundancies will mean some services can no longer be provided in the same way,” she said.

Ms O’Donnell also said the union had insisted that the Croke Park agreement, which has been accepted by the HSE, would be “fully utilised and not short circuited or circumvented” and called for arbitrators to be appointed before December 1st.