The main focus of health workers would be to get the benchmarking recommendations implemented speedily, IMPACT's national secretary for health, Mr Kevin Callinan, said yesterday. The union represents some 25,000 health workers.
He said the process had demonstrated that public service employees had fallen behind those in the private sector. "If the public sector has fallen behind, the task is to remedy that quickly so we can go on to talks on a future agreement," he said.
He was very pleased with the 12 per cent to 25 per cent increases recommended for paramedics (physiotherapists and speech and language therapists). "In our view these were professions who were underpaid for years."
The new pay scales would encourage more people into these professions and would hopefully prompt colleges to provide more places for students wishing to take up paramedical careers.
He was disappointed at the 2 per cent to 20 per cent increases recommended for social workers. He had hoped for a better recommendation given the current crisis in social worker recruitment.
The 8.5 per cent to 14 per cent recommended for clerical/administrative grades was in line with that recommended for local authority and other public service workers in similar grades.
Mr Fintan Hourihan, director of industrial relations with the Irish Medical Organisation, said non-consultant hospital doctors would react with varying degrees of satisfaction to the report, which recommends increases ranging from 5 per cent to 12 per cent.
He was pleased at the recommended removal of a "pay bar" which prevented registrars who had not taken their higher specialist exam from progressing up the scale. Among those to benefit would be some women doctors who postponed the exam while raising children and working.
However, he was disappointed at the 5 per cent award for interns (provisionally-registered doctors in their first year after graduating) whose salaries, after the increase, will be €27,355 a year.
One of the biggest increases recommended in the health sector is for ambulance crew. However, the 25 per cent increase is from a low base and will leave annual salary, at the middle of the scale, at €25,926.