Nurses will again escalate their industrial action with a total ban on overtime - which could close some services - and simultaneous two-hour work stoppages at every public hospital next Wednesday. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The plan, announced last night by the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA), follows a decision by health service employers to dock the pay of their 45,000 members by 13.16 per cent from this day week unless they abandon their action.
The INO and PNA said this made the nurses more determined than ever to continue to pursue a 10.6 per cent pay rise and a 35-hour week. At present they work 39 hours.
Liam Doran, general secretary of the INO, said the unions got legal advice on the threat to cut their pay for engaging in a work to rule and were told it would be "totally unlawful". He said they were now seriously considering seeking a High Court injunction to stop the HSE cutting their pay.
He said nurses would now stop staying late after shifts, which they often did out of goodwill.
Mr Doran said the unions would decide next week on a date for beginning the ban on overtime. "But it will be quick and nobody need expect a lot of days' notice," he warned.
Meanwhile, there will be three-hour work stoppages at four hospitals today - at St Vincent's hospital, Dublin, where more than 300 patient appointments have been cancelled; at Cork University Hospital, which has cancelled 24 patient appointments; at Limerick Regional Hospital where 50 appointments have been cancelled; and at University College Hospital, Galway, where 34 patients due there have been told to stay at home.
There will also be three-hour stoppages again on Monday at Beaumont, Naas and Sligo general hospitals.
The INO held a conference in Dublin yesterday where nurses heckled Minister for Health Mary Harney when she addressed it. Ms Harney reiterated that the nurses' pay claim could only be dealt with through benchmarking. "Clearly in an industrial relations dispute nobody wins in my opinion. And I think in that scenario we only find solutions if everybody is prepared to abandon the cause of winning," she told them.
"In a dispute of this kind, clearly there are losers and so far unfortunately, the only losers are patients."
Furthermore, she said the taxpayer couldn't be given a large bill as a result of the nurses' claims, which met with jeers.
Delegates didn't applaud when she completed her address, but in sharp contrast clapped loudly when INO president Madeline Spiers followed her to the podium. She accused Ms Harney of hypocrisy, pointing out she had settled with senior health managers in 2004 after they had for a number of weeks refused to co-operate with the establishment of the HSE, yet they were never threatened with having their pay docked. Instead she said they were rewarded with jobs for life and given an 11.5 per cent pay rise.
The Fine Gael leader told the nurses if he were taoiseach he would invite them back to talks and personally chair the first round of negotiations. He said an independent person could also be appointed under the Industrial Relations Act of 1990 to examine the dispute.
He would also set a date for a significant reduction in nurses' hours in early 2008. This would be a reduction of more than one hour, he said, but he would not quantify by how many. "It should also be possible to set a reasonable medium-term date to complete the reduction to 35 hours," he added. But he said their pay claim would have to be dealt with through benchmarking, which needed to be made more transparent.
When he defended the Government's handling of the dispute, Minister for Children Brian Lenihan was confronted by an angry nurse about all the money wasted on e-voting and Ppars.
Green Party health spokesman John Gormley committed to reducing the nurses' week to 35 hours within 2½ years and Labour's health spokeswoman Liz McManus said a date should be set for the phasing in of a 35-hour week. Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and the Socialist Party TD said both claims by nurses should be conceded.