Weekday strike will cause pain for patients, Leo tells nurses
THE Taoiseach has criticised nurses for planning to strike on a weekday when thousands of surgeries will have to be cancelled.
Leo Varadkar said the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation could have staged it on a weekend, which ‘wouldn’t have the same negative impact on patients’.
He said their action, planned for Wednesday, January 30, would have had same political impact on a Saturday. And his comments come as Siptu announced that its 4,000 nurses won’t support the strike, insisting the dispute can be dealt with through pay agreements.
Mr Varadkar said: ‘We will do everything we can to avoid a strike, but ultimately it is a decision by the unions, and I am saddened that the unions have taken a decision to strike on a Wednesday.
‘They had the option of striking on a Saturday or Sunday, which would have had the same political impact and put the same amount of pressure on the Government to resolve the problem and engage, but it wouldn’t have had such a big impact on patients.’
He said many patients have been waiting months, and even if the strike is called off at the last minute it will be too late to reschedule.’
The INMO intends to carry out a series of strikes, claiming staff shortages, caused by low pay, are leaving the health service short of staff.
However, a recent Public Service Pay Commission report stated the average pay for HSE staff nurses last year was €51,000, including allowances and overtime, and there was no basis for a general pay increase.
The further stoppages are planned for February 5 and 7, and that will escalate to a three-day stoppage on February 12, 13 and 14 if the dispute isn’t resolved.
Mr Varadkar, who is visiting Ethiopia, told the Irish Daily Mail that he totally respects the nurses’ right to strike but he added: ‘We have a pay deal with all public servants, not just nurses, and that provides for five different pay increases in 2019. All of that is costing hundreds of millions of euro.’ An INMO spokesman, respond to the Taoiseach’s weekend strike plea saying: ‘Nurses and midwives care for patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Whether it’s a Wednesday or a weekend, the Taoiseach and his Government should be aiming to resolve this dispute before it gets to a strike.’
Siptu spokesman Paul Bell said the strike would jeopardise the entire public sector pay deal. He told Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ radio that the Public Service Pay Commission had ‘granted increases of up to 20% on nursing allowances and is also introducing allowances where they were not existing for nurses, where it was identified that there was a recruitment and retention issue.
‘We have also made progress in the public service agreement for new entrants, nurses that started around 2011, with some €3,500 involved in that.’
However, the INMO’s deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said there were ‘very serious problem of recruitment and retention in nursing’. He said: ‘We know there is a problem, the public know there is a problem, we know that the health service is wasting money by refusing to deal with this problem.
‘We know patient care is being damaged by the failure to deal with this problem.’
Labour’s health spokesman Alan Kelly called on Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe to hold talks with the INMO on pay.
He said: ‘While Minister Donohoe seems to be well able to comment on nurses’ pay when there is a microphone in front of him, yet he and his department are reluctant to sit down with the main representative body for nurses in Ireland and discuss issues around pay and recruitment of staff.’
The industrial action announcement comes as 465 patients were yesterday on trolleys in hospitals across the country waiting for beds.
‘It will have same political impact’
‘Patient care is being damaged’