Madam, - Let's call a spade a spade. The INO wants a 10 per cent pay increase outside benchmarking and a reduction in hours from 39 to 35, equivalent to another 10 per cent rise. In addition, any hours worked after 35 hours will attach an overtime premium of time-and-a-half.
Is it coincidental that the nurses action has come eight weeks before a general election when health is the number one policy issue? I do not think so. - Yours, etc,
MARY BOLAND, Castlecourt, Clancy's Strand, Limerick.
Madam, - So the INO thinks that refusing to take patient-related phone calls or input patient information into a computer system constitutes a "work to rule"? What century is the INO living in? The union appears to be working on the assumption that the public purse is bottomless, that the politicians will buckle with the election looming and that patients make excellent hostages.
Nurses certainly have a right to refuse to work overtime, but the HSE should make it clear to the INO that the current actions go well beyond a "work to rule" and that salary penalties may be applied to staff who refuse to carry out normal daily activities. Any patient deaths which result from the current "work to rule" should be the subject of proceedings for criminal negligence. - Yours, etc,
PETER MOLLOY, Haddington Park, Glenageary, Co Dublin.
A Chara, - It is disgusting to see highly-paid politicians, pundits and HSE spin doctors condemning hard-working, underpaid nurses. A typical example was on RTE's Questions & Answers on Monday night, when all six pontificators - panellists and presenter - were probably paid three to ten times as much as the nurses they criticised.
The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and other Cabinet members have received 24 pay increases since they took office in 1997. These include routine awards under the national wage agreements, benchmarking and special awards for higher level public officials.
The Taoiseach's salary has increased from €112,159 in 1997 to just under €266,492 today - a rise of almost 140 per cent. In the same period, the average industrial wage has risen from €19,300 to just over €32,000, an increase of less than 60 per cent. Ten years ago, the Taoiseach was paid six times the average industrial wage. Today, that gap has widened to 8.5 times the wage of an average Irish worker. - Is mise,
Dr SEAN MARLOW, Willow Park Road, Dublin 11.