As nurses return to the Labour Court this morning in a last attempt to avoid industrial action, SIPTU vice-president Mr Des Geraghty has urged the Government to "make full use of the opportunity" presented to it.
Addressing delegates at the annual SIPTU nurses' conference, Mr Geraghty said the talks today and tomorrow were an opportunity for the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, and the Health Services Employers' Agency to ensure that a fair settlement of the nurses' pay and allowances grievances was reached.
"If this does not happen, nurses will have the full support of SIPTU in any consequential dispute," he said.
Mr Geraghty also told delegates that there was a growing recognition that to sustain our economic and social well-being into the next millennium we must now make significant investment in infrastructure, including roads, transport systems and telecommunications. "But perhaps even more important is our human infrastructure, the support services of health, education, the local government services of housing and environmental protection and our social services.
"We must seek to attract the best students, the committed carers and the highest qualified to bring their skills to bear on these services." In recent times, said Mr Geraghty, there had been criticism of trends in public sector pay, leading to a Government emphasis on performance-related pay.
"Our view is that the emphasis in the public sector must be more on quality and access to services. To achieve that we must invest in people, in skills, education and training, in supervisory and managerial excellence, and in better organisation and delivery of services," he said.
A resolution of the current issues in dispute for nurses would mean that they could get on with their "vital caring tasks". The Labour spokeswoman on Health, Ms Liz McManus, said the investment in the health services was "not commensurate" with the economic status and performance of the State. Her main priority was to highlight the inequalities in society, which she described as a major determinant of health status. "I asked an eminent consultant recently what was the secret to a healthy, long life," Ms McManus said. "The response was to choose your parents wisely and the ensure that you are born rich. It was humorous but also a sad reflection of the situation we are in."
The publication recently of the first national lifestyle survey, she said, showed that levels of smoking, alcohol abuse and even stillbirths, were directly connected to socio-economic status. "An unemployed, working-class male is three times more likely to have a heart attack than a middle-class, employed man.
"The health services are skewed in favour of the middle classes. We do have many excellent people working in the health services but many of them are frustrated because they cannot give a fairer service."