UNIONS REPRESENTING staff in the health sector claim the Health Service Executive (HSE) is in breach of a number of key agreements by issuing a new circular on employment control without prior consultation.
The circular, issued last week, detailed how the HSE is to freeze outside recruitment for all management and administrative positions and carry out an immediate review of allowances paid to thousands of staff.
It said managers would be banned from filling approved vacancies until such time as all options, including redeployment and reassignment, had been examined.
Furthermore, the circular said the HSE’s service plan for the year required cuts in expenditure equivalent to the pay costs of 2,457 whole-time staff.
Health service unions met yesterday to consider how they should respond to the circular.
The Irish Nurses Organisation and Impact said afterwards the way in which the document was issued without prior consultation was in breach of a previous Labour Court agreement and Towards 2016.
The Labour Court ruled last year that the HSE breached the terms of Towards 2016 when it implemented a ban on recruitment in September 2007 without consulting staff or their unions.
Last night the national secretary of Impact’s health and welfare division, Kevin Callinan, wrote to the HSE’s director of human resources, Seán McGrath
Mr Callinan outlined the health unions stance and urged that the circular be set aside for the moment.
Mr Callinan’s letter to the HSE stated that: “The group of unions has met to consider the latest developments and, in the circumstances, I have been directed to request you not to implement the terms of the circular until a framework, such as the current draft accord, has been finalised and agreed.”