A union representing 28,000 health service staff said yesterday industrial action could not be ruled out by its members in response to new recruitment controls imposed by the Health Service Executive.
Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said a HSE circular, issued earlier this month, effectively abolished posts that were unfilled when last year's recruitment freeze was imposed by the HSE as well as posts that became vacant during the freeze. The circular said only "critical front-line vacancies" that arose before 2008 can be filled - but only if other vacant posts that arise this year are done away with.
He said staff were furious about this and while they would await the outcome of a Labour Court hearing today on the HSE recruitment freeze of last year, there was a lot of pressure from members to take action on the issue. Asked what action might be taken, he said: "Industrial action certainly could not be ruled out at this stage".
He added: "If the Government thinks health workers are annoyed about benchmarking, they should brace themselves for a real wave of anger over staffing in hospitals and community health services. This bizarre and unworkable new policy is hurting patients and service users, while placing intolerable burdens on workers. Posts are being suppressed even if they are within budget, within complement and approved as necessary by the HSE as recently as last autumn," he said.
Today's Labour Court hearing is in relation to whether the HSE breached Towards 2016, and legislation covering staff rights to consultation, when it imposed its recruitment freeze last September in an effort to offset a multimillion euro deficit.
Brendan Mulligan of the HSE Employers' Agency said the recruitment ban had been lifted at the end of December.
He said tighter controls were now in place to ensure the HSE stayed within budget and within its employment ceiling this year. "That is just good management," he said.