Siptu will ask for more money if nurses get it

The Government will face pay claims from healthcare assistants, ambulance personnel and radiographers if nurses receive more money to avert threatened industrial action.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) on Friday wrote to Minister for Health Simon Harris proposing talks to discuss and agree "special incentivised measures" aimed at addressing what it described as the recruitment and retention crisis in nursing and midwifery.

INMO members voted by 90 per cent this week in favour of a campaign of one-day strikes and industrial action if no progress was made in dealing with staffing deficits in the public health service.

The union said if such “special measures” could not be agreed, the proposed talks should examine what services should be curtailed to ensure that activity levels matched available staffing levels.

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Siptu health division organiser Paul Bell said on Friday that if the INMO secured additional money, his members would seek similar payments.

Healthcare assistants

He said such issues were being experienced in recruiting healthcare assistants, ambulance personnel and chefs to work in the health service.

Mr Bell said he understood a process was underway which would see the newly-established Public Service Pay Commission investigate problems being experienced in certain areas and that negotiations would follow with the Government on a successor to the existing Lansdowne Road public service pay deal.

However, he said that if a separate process looking at additional payments for nurses was established, his members would seek similar arrangements.

It is understood that the Department of Health will seek to convene an initial discussion with the INMO in the week ahead.

However sources suggested it would be highly unlikely that any new process arising from such talks would deal with pay, although they could look at issues such as recruitment processes and future career pathways for nurses.

It is understood that the oversight group for the operation of the Lansdowne Road public service pay agreement considered the potential nurses’ dispute at a meeting on Thursday.

Matter of urgency

Informed sources said that the oversight group maintained that the INMO and health service management should hold talks as a matter of urgency to ensure that any potential action did not go ahead in light of provisions in the Lansdowne Road deal relating to industrial peace.

INMO general secretary Liam Doran has said members gave the union a mandate for a mixture of one-day strikes and a continuous work-to-rule.

He said the industrial action would be “shaped at contracting health services”.

“It will include no redeployment from one ward to another, no cross cover in the community, no overtime or no working excess hours,” he said.

The executive of the INMO is scheduled to meet on January 17th to review progress in any talks with the Department of Health and HSE and, if necessary, to decide on the nature and timing of industrial action, which would not take place until the beginning of February.