DELEGATES ATTENDING the annual conference of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) in Killarney will be asked today to give the go-ahead to their union leaders to conduct local, regional and national ballots for all-out industrial action at hospitals across the State if the HSE acts unilaterally to cut their pay and allowances, or axe jobs.
The emergency motion, to be put before the second day of the conference today, will if passed also give the union’s leaders the go-ahead to take legal action if necessary to maintain existing rates of basic pay, premium pay and on-call rates for all INO members, as well as to maintain safe standards of care.
The union’s general secretary Liam Doran said yesterday the motion would also condemn recent cutbacks in the health services, the penal attack on nurses’ pay to preserve an unworthy banking industry, and seek ratification of a nine-point directive, already signed up to by other health sector unions, which nurses should adhere to in the face of cutbacks and the Government’s recruitment embargo.
This directive states that all members should refuse to accept any redeployment other than what was agreed with unions, should resist attempts by the HSE to get them to work overtime without appropriate pay, and they should not undertake duties or roles or responsibilities of a person who had been let go and not replaced or of a post which had been left vacant.
Giving examples of cutbacks, Mr Doran said the premium pay of nurses at the Mercy hospital in Cork were cut without notice last week and there were now around 800 acute hospital beds blocked because funding for home care packages had been turned off.
He also claimed that as a consequence there were 64 per cent more patients on trolleys in hospital emergency departments in the last week of April this year compared to the same period last year.
The conference continues today and Minister for Health Mary Harney is due to address delegates tomorrow.