The Impact trade union has today begun a ballot of its health service members in response to the ongoing HSE recruitment freeze and its affect on services.
The ballot would allow the union to engage in different types of industrial action at various times and locations and includes the option to strike.
Impact wants the HSE to remove recruitment restrictions and to respect existing agreements and conditions of employment.
The precise form of any industrial action will be decided by the union's health and welfare divisional executive after the ballot outcome is announced on Monday 28th April. The union is obliged to give at least three weeks notice of any industrial action, under an existing agreement.
"Any industrial action will be aimed at rescinding recruitment restrictions and protecting existing agreements and third party recommendations about staff working conditions," Impact said in a statement.
The union represents 28,000 in the HSE and HSE-funded agencies.
IMPACT national secretary Kevin Callinan said: "The recruitment freeze is already hitting services from cancer care to suicide prevention and the HSE says it wants to extend service availability into evenings and weekends. Talk of redundancy has nothing to do with better services, it's simply about cutting expenditure."