HEALTH SERVICE Executive (HSE) staff could face pay cuts next year in a bid to save money, the Minister for Health has signalled.
Mary Harney told reporters in Dublin that if the HSE could not identify €400 million in savings from reducing staff numbers by 6,000 in line with the McCarthy report’s recommendations, “then issues arise as to whether salary reductions will have to be contemplated”.
Her comments were met with a swift response from the union Impact, which represents administrative grades in the HSE.
Spokesman Bernard Harbor said any attempt to impose a further pay cut in the HSE or anywhere else in the public sector would be met with industrial action.
He said Impact was convinced the Government was considering salary cuts in the public service because at the end of the recent round of pay talks in June, the union made it clear it would agree to enter negotiations around relocation and deployment of staff if the Government gave a guarantee there would be no further cuts in core pay. The Government refused to give such a guarantee, Mr Harbor said.
Siptu national nursing official Louise O’Reilly said her union would reject any suggestion of pay cuts.
“Workers in the HSE have co- operated with all cost-saving measures and we will continue to be available to discuss cost-saving measures, but we would absolutely reject any suggestion that salaries would be cut.”
She said to cut salaries would be an extremely provocative act which would make workers very angry and could prompt a vote for strike action.
The HSE was recently told by the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, to draw up plans for cutting spending by up to €800 million next year.
In response, the HSE said last week it is “highly unlikely” it will be able to achieve spending cuts of €800 million in 2010 without implementing policy and legislative changes.
Ms Harney, when asked about the directive yesterday, made it clear there would be big reductions in health spending next year.
“Clearly, we will now begin the process of preparing the Estimates for 2010 and the Government will be meeting over the next number of weeks to discuss in particular implementation of the many aspects of the McCarthy report.
“And the McCarthy report identified in excess of €1 billion savings that could be made in health, and what the secretary general of the Department of Health has done is he has asked the HSE to look at the different scenarios that would arise if particular reductions were made.”
She said she wanted to make it clear that “we will be looking at significant reductions” in health spending for 2010.
“I want to make sure that we minimise the impact on patients and, in particular, I want to ensure that we continue with our initiatives in the cancer area and that means identifying priorities and moving resources from areas where they are of less priority to areas of greater priority.”