Nurses today threatened to escalate their industrial action by staging work stoppages from next week over their demands for improved pay and conditions.
Mary Harney
More than 40,000 nurses today entered a second day of work-to-rule action, but the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) said they had plans to step up their action by walking off wards.
In the Dáil today, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern ruled out any pay increases for the nurses. Mr Ahern said there was "no mechanism" for resolving the nurse's pay claim because it "flies in the face" of the overall pay agreement.
At a press conference in Dublin the unions said they would announce on Monday a series of rolling work stoppages, with the first on Wednesday. The unions urged employers to be "creative" in resolving the dispute.
Speaking after a strategy meeting, INO general secretary Liam Doran said the unions had decided to wait until after Easter to carry out the rolling work stoppages so that it would not affect patients in hospital who were hoping to get out by the weekend.
He said the full details of the proposed stoppages have yet to be decided and would be announced on Monday.
"We will always be providing essential cover and emergency cover during any work stoppage. The exact nature and shape of that will be determined by the experts on the ground, that's our members who are the co-ordinating committees. The work stoppages will always ensure there is a level of nursing cover. The nature, location, the shape of them, we will be announcing on Monday."
Des Kavanagh, PNA
PNA general secretary Des Kavanagh said his members were "absolutely resolute" and "in for the long haul".
They were prepared to carry on with the action as long as it took to get a resolution, he said.
"There is absolute unity . . . the people are up for it, they are waiting to take more action, but they are patient-conscious and solution conscious. It's really up to the employers now to engage. But if the employers are doubting our commitment, that's a very dangerous game to be playing."
Mr Doran and Mr Kavanagh said they had been creative in offering solutions to the health service employers and that they had not been met with the same creativity in return. They said there were currently no plans for direct talks to resolve the dispute.
The work-to-rule action, which started at 8am yesterday, is being taken by the unions as part of their campaign for improved pay and conditions, with increased pay and lower hours their chief goals.
Nurses are not answering telephones, except in essential cases and they are refusing to carry out clerical, IT or administrative work. They are also recording engagements with patients manually.
According to the Health Service Executive (HSE) A&E departments are experiencing backlogs, with outpatients in hospitals, community-based services, and psychiatric services also suffering service delays.
Brendan Mulligan, HSEA
In a statement today, the HSE said the industrial action would cause "significant disruption" and "hardship and distress to patients".
The HSE said the functioning of outpatient and day treatment services had been impeded by the refusal of nurses to order tests and to access test results.
The HSE said it was particularly concerned that the disruption of patient discharges would have an increasing impact on emergency departments.
Brendan Mulligan, assistant chief executive with the Health Service Employers' Agency, said: "Disruption was not necessary, and all of the issues associated with the unions' campaign have been subject to an in-depth examination by the Labour Court, which recommended that their pay claims should be processed through the Public Service Benchmarking Body."
Minister for Health Mary Harney said there were 40,000 nurses but 300,000 public servants and that the process in place for dealing with their pay issues was benchmarking. Short of the INO and the PNA using this process "we're not going to be able to resolve these issues", Ms Harney said.
Also speaking in the Dáil today, Sinn Féin's health spokesman Caomhghín Ó Caoláin called on Ms Harney to "intervene immediately to ensure that the dispute is resolved speedily through the granting of the shorter working week and the resolution of outstanding pay issues".