Nursing Alliance leaders responded angrily last night to comments by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, that its members were "claim-jumpers" threatening the national interest by undermining social partnership. Mr McCreevy made his remarks about the impending strike during a trip to Luxembourg.
The strongest reaction came from the general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, Mr Des Kavanagh, who said he was "just amazed that the Minister at this time seems to be losing it. It is a time, at the very least, for circumspection, not running off at the mouth".
He said the only effect of Mr McCreevy's words would be to strengthen members' resolve. As evidence of this he cited the fact that members in St Patrick's private psychiatric hospital, Dublin, had voted by 87 per cent to join the proposed national strike in public health service.
Although the hospital had agreed in principle to pay whatever was finally agreed to resolve the dispute in the public service, Mr Kavanagh said that members felt, if there was going to be a strike, they "want to be part of it. They do not want to leave the fight to their colleagues in the public services. They are equally sick and tired of being underpaid and undervalued". The general secretary of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Mr Liam Doran, said Mr McCreevy's comments suggested that neither the Minister nor the Government understood the extent of the crisis in the health service. The dispute "is about pay, but not just about pay", he said. "When will the Government start to realise that?"
He said staffing shortages were critical, not just in Dublin but elsewhere. There were 8,000 registered nurses on the inactive list, he added. But they would not return to the health service until grievances over pay, conditions and other issues were addressed.
Earlier, Mr McCreevy said "We're not going to let any one group claim-jump everyone else." Speaking to journalists on the fringes of yesterday's meeting of finance ministers, he insisted "there simply isn't anything else on the table" to meet their pay claim. This could set off generalised wage claims throughout the economy.
He acknowledged the situation was "very serious" but insisted that the suffering caused to the old and children who went without care would be the responsibility of the nurses. "I am very concerned at the reluctance of the Nursing Alliance to enter meaningful negotiations about what will happen when the strike begins," he said.
Mr McCreevy said it would be wrong to use the current Exchequer strength to rewrite the nurses' Labour Court award. "Apart from other considerations, such an approach would quite simply be unfair on the rest of the community who worked together and made sacrifices within the agreed social partnership framework to achieve the economic success we are now enjoying."
The Minister also spoke of the need to address the issue of automatic relativities in a review of the public sector pay system.
"It is still not too late for the nursing unions to call off their strike. The combination of the Labour Court finding, the Report of the Commission on Nursing, and the discussions with the public service unions about a new approach to public service pay determination provide enough scope to address the grievances of nurses, both pay and non-pay, in a reasonable way."
The Taoiseach in Limerick yesterday said he fully supported the comments made by Mr McCreevey.
"The remarks made today by the Minister for Finance, I have to say I am 100 per cent in agreement with," he said.
"We have agreed to pay an enormous pay round to the nurses and we want to do that under the terms of the Labour Court. We have accepted it 100 per cent and hopefully everyone else will accept it too," he said.