Psychiatric nurses cast new doubt on talks about pay

The psychiatric nurses' union has cast new doubt over the success of talks on nursing pay by condemning employer proposals which it said "discriminate" against its members.

The officer board of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA), held a day-long meeting yesterday to consider the latest Health Service Employers' Agency (HSEA) proposals on pay and restructuring.

Mr Des Kavanagh, PNA general secretary, said the proposals had been rejected on a number of counts, primarily because they would lead to a downgrading of senior psychiatric nursing scales.

The proposals were put forward during talks which began on February 25th last and are being facilitated by an officer with the Labour Relations Commission, Mr Francis McCaffrey.

The talks are to come to a head on Monday when their progress will be examined in a plenary session. In the meantime, the talks continue today and tomorrow.

The HSEA proposals are aimed at harmonising nursing grades, as recommended by the Commission on Nursing, and involve varied pay increases.

Under the proposals, ward sisters and nursing officers would receive 4.9 per cent and 4.4 per cent increases, while deputy nursing officers would get a 1.5 per cent increase.

Mr Kavanagh said this amounted to the downgrading of the deputy nursing officer scale. He said the proposals also failed to compensate senior staff for having to work on-call.

"Consultants and plumbers get on-call allowances but with nurses they're expected to work on-call for nothing," said Mr Kavanagh.

The PNA has sought a meeting with Mr McCaffrey in advance of Monday's plenary session to express its concern at the lack of progress at the talks.

A meeting of the union's national executive committee has been called for next Wednesday at which it will consider whether to recommend members should work only according to their job descriptions.

Mr Kavanagh said the PNA was "clearly laying down a marker that this nursing pay dispute cannot be brought to a satisfactory conclusion on the basis of this poisonous principle of discrimination". The union "will defend the status and integrity of nurses in psychiatry and mental handicap within the current pay talks process and if necessary by industrial action at the end of the process."

Mr Gerry Barry, HSEA chief executive, declined to comment on the criticism, saying the employers' body preferred to address the relevant issues at the talks.