The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform expects unions to attend the Labour Court when invited, he said in response to a refusal to do so by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.
Brendan Howlin was speaking today after the IHCA said it would not attend a planned Labour Court hearing on Thursday on management proposals for work-practice changes under the Croke Park agreement.
"We would expect people who are invited by the Labour Court..... to turn up to that, and we expect all unions which are signed up and fully protected by Croke Park to keep their side of the bargain," Mr Howlin told reporters this morning.
"You can't be part of a collective agreement for the things that protect you and excluded from a protective agreement for the things that challenge you," Mr Howlin said.
The move by the IHCA could put the it on a collision course with the Government. The Health Service Executive said last night it seemed the IHCA was walking away from the Croke Park deal.
“We don’t have a need to turn up on Thursday because these items aren’t covered by the Croke Park agreement,” IHCA secretary general Martin Varley said this morning.
The Labour Court was due to deal with two issues referred by management under the Croke Park process – changes to current rest-day arrangements and reforms to fees for second opinions in the area of mental health. Under the Croke Park agreement, such Labour Court recommendations would be binding.
Another issue – historic rest days – was to be referred to the Labour Court under other industrial relations legislation and would not be binding. However, the IHCA has signalled that it would not be taking part in the scheduled Labour Court hearing.
Mr Varley said issues such as rest days for consultants who were on very onerous rotas are among the items not covered by the agreement.
“The Croke Park agreement in the health sector is very specific. It has laid out 15 issues which should be discussed under the Croke Park agreement. We have discussed those issues insofar as they are relevant to consultants and basically what we have here is the HSE throwing two or three issues into the Labour Court which shouldn’t be discussed at all,” he told RTÉ Radio this morning.
Mr Varley said it was an issue of safety for patients and consultants. “You can’t expect any professional nowadays to be on call every night and every weekend, in addition to their normal work, for 26 days out of 28,” he said
Mr Varley last night told The Irish Times section 2.8 of the Croke Park deal said all previous agreements remained intact except for 15 areas of reforms listed elsewhere in the document.
The IHCA said none of the proposed changes referred to in the Labour Court were within the scope of the specific health sector measures included in the Croke Park agreement.
Mr Varley also said members of the association had voted overwhelmingly that it could not enter into collective agreements which would change the terms of their legally binding contracts without their personal consent.
He said on the basis of these issues the IHCA was not in a position to agree to participate in the scheduled Labour Court hearing.
The Irish Medical Organisation, which represents a smaller number of hospital consultants, said it would attend the Labour Court hearing.
Last week, Minister for Health James Reilly said if hospital consultants did not co-operate with a Labour Court recommendation they could find themselves outside the protections of the Croke Park agreement. This could lead to the introduction of pay cuts for serving hospital consultants.
The Government has already put in place pay cuts of 30 per cent for new consultants.
Last night, HSE national director of human resources Barry O’Brien said it had repeatedly stressed it wanted to treat all staff with a parity of esteem and equality of treatment. He said by its decision the IHCA would appear to consider the Croke Park agreement applied differently to its members as public servants than it did to other groups.
The IHCA said hospital consultants had been implementing reforms and wished to have constructive discussions leading to further improvements in the health services.
“Dr Reilly and the HSE last year sought consultants’ support to deliver health service improvements through the clinical care programmes, within existing contracts and the public service agreement”.
It said all reports had confirmed consultants were delivering these improvements.
