Nurses working in the mental health care sector say they will go on strike unless employers agree to their demands on a 20 per cent-plus pay claim.
In a ballot, the result of which was announced yesterday, registered mental handicap nurses affiliated to the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) voted by 95 per cent in favour of industrial action up to and including the withdrawal of labour in pursuance of the claim.
They are seeking the restoration of relative pay conditions arising from the decision earlier this year to award house parents and assistant house parents, working in residential units, pay rises of between 19 and 27 per cent.
INO general secretary Mr Liam Doran said it was "intolerable" that qualified nurses, who had completed a dedicated degree course, were being paid up to €2,000 less on each point of the scale to residential workers, many of whom had no qualifications. Before the latter received their pay awards, following strike action, their salaries were about €3,000 behind that of nurses.
The strike action by house parents was in turn triggered by a decision to award workers in high-support children's residential care units an equivalent pay increase to attract more workers. A shortage of staff in the area had been cited as the main reason for there not being sufficient residential care places for at-risk teenagers.
Mr Doran said "the employers have made this problem by not consulting us" on the previous increases in pay to other grades.
The Health Service Employers Agency (HSEA), however, said the action was "very premature" given it was already in discussions with unions on the issue.
The agency's industrial relations executive, Mr John Delamare, said there might be a legitimate concern where care workers were reporting to nurses but "in our view there are not very many cases where this occurs". As regards basic pay rates, he said these had been set down in the benchmarking report and were non-negotiable.
Mr Doran rejected this argument, saying the 1,700 mental health care nurses fell outside of the benchmarking process.
The INO and HSEA are to hold talks on the issue next Wednesday while, on November 6th, the INO's national section is to meet to decide what action, if any, will be taken.
The National Association for the Mentally Handicapped in Ireland called on the two sides to enter into "meaningful discussions" to prevent the dispute from escalating.
