STAFF AT the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) are to ballot on industrial action as part of a campaign for improvements in their pension scheme. The staff concerned are members of the Irish Aviation (General Employees) Superannuation Scheme, which also includes employees of Aer Lingus and SR Technics, formerly Team Aer Lingus.
A recent analysis carried out by the trade union Siptu has expressed concern about the financial status of the scheme which has about 6,000 members overall.
A number of weeks ago, for the first time in its 50-year history, the scheme's trustees declined to pay out indexation increases for pensioners.
The Siptu report says Aer Lingus has 3,131 active contributing members, 3,050 deferred pensioners and 3,098 pensioners; the DAA has 2,538 active contributing members, 317 deferred pensioners, and 975 pensioners; SR Technics has 394 active contributing members, 159 deferred pensioners and 260 pensioners.
The Siptu report says there are two contributing DAA employees for every one benefactor member, but that the situation is reversed for Aer Lingus staff.
Following the privatising of Aer Lingus, it said, two ancillary pension funds were established for the airline's staff which received more than €100 million from the proceeds of the sale of the company. However, Siptu maintains that the funds in these schemes have been significantly eroded.
The airport authority said it was surprised at the decision to ballot for industrial action given that negotiations were continuing.
In a separate dispute, psychiatric nurses said services around the State were being hit as a result of an overtime ban introduced as part of their campaign for a compensation scheme for staff injured at work.
The Psychiatric Nurses Association said the acute psychiatric unit at Naas General Hospital had less than half its normal staffing level.
It said a number of units at St Brendan's in Dublin had been closed, staff in St Ita's in Portrane had worked 24-hour shifts because there was no overtime staff available, and at St Loman's Hospital, patients in a hostel had been readmitted to the hospital because of a shortage of personnel.