Thousands of nurses and midwives are expected to converge on Croke Park next month for a major rally to express frustration over their pay and conditions.
The decision to hold the rally on June 14th was taken on foot of an emergency motion tabled at the annual conference of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) in Cavan yesterday where delegates were angry over nurses having to work for 21 years before being paid the same amount as childcare workers, qualified or unqualified. Over each of the other years, childcare workers earn €2,000 to €3,000 a year more than nurses.
They also claim they have to work a 39-hour week when most other grades in the health service work 35 hours a week.
Having opted out of benchmarking, they lodged a pay claim with the Labour Court, which is expected to hear their arguments for increased pay and a special allowance for nurses working in the capital, on June 20th.
"So a week before the Labour Court we have an opportunity to say to all and sundry, but especially the Labour Court, that this is it, this is the power of nurses and midwives. You don't need to see it demonstrated any other way," said INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes.
When Olive Cullen, a nurse from Kilkenny, suggested they march on the Dáil instead, Mr Hughes said that was not ruled out. But for now the union would put its faith in procedures. "We are not threatening industrial action. We are not threatening anybody," he said.
He suggested that the failure to fund the pay claim could have repercussions for Government. He said the INO had over 33,000 members and it was supported by the Psychiatric Nurses Association which has up to 6,000 members. "And all our members have families and friends. As a block vote that would change a government," he said.
INO president Madeline Spiers said of the Progressive Democrats and their privatisation agenda: "They are going to go in the next election, folks, and we are going to see them off the planet."
Minister for Health Mary Harney has already said the nurses' pay claim amounts to €1.5 billion, that it is "not affordable" and "will not be paid". She reiterated this in Dublin yesterday but added that nurses were fully entitled to protest and that a balance had to be struck between financing new services for patients and paying existing staff.
Irish nurses were the second best-paid in the world, she added, before stressing that she had a high regard for nurses despite their differences over pay. She said the mechanism to deal with public sector pay demands was benchmarking and the INO had opted out of that.
INO general secretary Liam Doran said nurses were the second-lowest frontline workers in the health service and the Labour Court could not be influenced by statements from the Tánaiste who said the demands were unaffordable.