Nurses yesterday threatened to pull out of the Sustaining Progress agreement because of an alleged failure by health managers to implement even minor binding agreements at local level over the past 12 months, and the crisis in Accident and Emergency units.
Delegates heard of a catalogue of areas in which binding agreements had been entered into and not honoured by health bodies at the annual Irish Nurses Organisation conference in Killarney.
They included a €10 million debt built up over 30 years in underpayment of 'acting up' allowances. In all but the Southern Health Board, nurse managers who were being asked to act temporarily in those senior positions at night or at bank holiday periods were not getting the allowances.
This was despite an instruction from the Health Sector Employers' Agency to pay the allowances from May 2000, and a binding agreement last year by the Labour Court on back-pay.
Members had died without being paid what was owed them. In recent weeks, Mr Tomás Ó Baoil, general secretary of the retired nurses branch, had died without being paid what was owed him, said Mr Dave Hughes, INO deputy general secretary.
Public health nurses, studying for their qualifications, were this year not getting the agreed basic registered nurse salary and a refund of course fees. This was despite the fact these nurses were graduates and midwives, There was a severe shortage of public health nurses, and the entitlements had not been paid since 2000, Mr Hughes said.
In the Mid-Western Health Board, a nurse who won a High Court determination on equality, had still not been paid the relatively small sum owed her.
"Any one of these issues only affect relatively small numbers. That's why the health boards are not honouring the procedures," said Mr Hughes.
However, as there was widespread dishonouring of agreements by health managers, there was a cumulative effect. The INO under Sustaining Progress had refrained from threatening or taking industrial action. But it was increasingly difficult for the INO to urge members to "hold the line". Frustration was going to boil over on bigger issues such as over-crowding in A&E, he predicted.
A speaker said nurses in A&E would be more highly thought of "if we had equine blood, rather than human blood".The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, was asked from the floor how he was going to resolve the anomaly in pay for nurses in the intellectual disability handicap sector whereby unqualified care workers working under their supervision were paid more as a result of the higher benchmarking awards.
"Does the person who cleans your office get paid more than you do - and no disrespect to that person," Ms Marie Gilligan asked.
Mr Martin said he was not responsible for the methodology of benchmarking but would look into the issue.