GARDAI AND MEDICS MUST WORK MORE ANTI-SOCIAL HOURS LEO
Be there when we need you, demands Taoiseach
THE Taoiseach has told gardaí and hospital con- sultants that they will have to work when they are needed – and not when they want to.
Leo Varadkar said yesterday that members of An Garda Síochána and the health service will need to change their rostering and work anti-social hours and weekends to suit the public.
‘Gardaí are often not rostered when they are needed – something that can happen in the health service too,’ the Taoiseach told the Dáil.
Mr Varadkar was making a veiled reference to hospital consultants, who prefer a nine-to-five lifestyle – and who recently won a resounding legal battle for more cash from the State coffers.
The Government hired private detectives during their latest pay dispute to show that some consultants
are not in public hospitals when they are supposed to be and are, instead, focused on private patients.
A source said: ‘This is not a reference to nurses. There are 24/7 rosters for them. They’re there when needed.’
The Taoiseach told the Irish Daily Mail last night that he had not just been ‘sounding off’ in the Dáil on the subject.
‘On some days, Monday to Friday, the number of staff can outnumber patients in our hospitals. But on Saturdays and Sundays, we have a skeleton service. We need to change that,’ he said.
‘It obviously has to be done by negotiation, but we now have 10,000 doctors in the health service. We’ve employed [an extra] 600 gardaí and so we are giving extra resources in terms of staff, finance and equipment. The taxpayer needs to know those resources are being used as efficiently as possible.’
Earlier, at Leinster House, Mr Varadkar told TDs: ‘There might be many people on duty when it is relatively busy, but when it’s extremely busy there are not so many people on duty. That may mean asking people to work rosters they consider to be anti-social, but if we care about society we must have staff in the Garda, the health service, and in other areas rostered on duty when society needs them.’
The Taoiseach said Garda visibility was what people wanted, explaining: ‘In my community in Blanchardstown and Castleknock, people like to see gardaí out on the beat, in cars and on bicycles.
‘Things can be done with existing staff levels to increase visibility, such as greater civilianisation. Many gardaí are not out in public where people can see them because they are behind desks and in offices, and that has to change.
‘We will need co-operation from the Garda Representative Association [GRA] and others with regard to civilianisation,’ he said, adding that the Government would be ‘making those reforms’.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan is said to have been shocked by a recent evaluation showing only half of all gardaí may be available for operations duties at any one time. Meanwhile, Dr Peadar Gilligan, president of the Irish Medical Organisation and a consultant at Beaumont Hospital, said Mr Varadkar’s remarks about consultants were ‘very disappointing’.
Dr Gilligan said: ‘Consultants are available around the clock. The problem is that there is a chronic shortage in the numbers of consultants because enough have not been employed. We estimate that there are over 1,400 fewer consultants employed in the country than are needed, and there are over 450 posts for consultants which cannot be filled at present.’
The Government is smarting at a recent ‘hit’ on the public purse by consultants.
Mr Varadkar recently praised RTÉ for a Prime Time investigation into consultants which showed many were not complying with their service contracts by treating public patients, but were instead concentrating on private patients – in public hospitals.
The Government was determined to go after consultants during pay talks. It emerged last month that it had hired private detectives to trail them when they left their clinics, to prove they were not working in public hospitals – as per their contracts.
Despite the covert surveillance, a huge settlement was agreed with hospital consultants in June. It involves payment of €182million in arrears in stages. Some 2,700 consultants are to receive the arrears – including the few exposed by Prime Time for preferring to treat private patients.
Health Minister Simon Harris said the settlement would also involve the consultants co-operating on new ways of verifying that their members are delivering on their hours of public treatment.
Asked by the Mail how this would be done, Mr Harris said there would be very clear rules and the consultants’ body would agree a monitoring mechanism with the HSE.
The GRA said it had noted the Taoiseach’s comments, but could not comment while pay negotiations continue.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors has not yet commented.
‘It has to be done by negotiation’
‘450 posts which cannot be filled’