‘Cost of going to work is now outpacing wage rises for nurses’
THE cost of going to work is ‘becoming a real issue’ for nurses and midwives, as their union claims a shocking 70% have still not received their €1,000 pandemic bonus payment.
As the price of rent, housing and fuel continues to spiral, the daily expenses faced by these workers are outweighing wage increases on the table, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
This comes as 70% of frontline workers eligible for the tax-free bonus payment of €1,000 are yet to receive the payment, according to the union’s general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha.
‘What our nurses are saying is that with the current cost of going to work, staying at work is becoming a real issue. The cost of housing, the cost of rent, the cost of putting fuel in their cars – all of those out-ofpocket expenses far out-pace the wage increases in Building Momentum, which were negotiated in early 2020,’ she told RTÉ’s This Week.
‘They are on very modest salaries. The starting salary for a nurse is €31,000 and after 17 years the maximum they can achieve in that grade is €51,000. These are not big earners. Any out-of-pocket expense and any rate of inflation increase therefore has a huge impact.’
The Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions failed to strike a deal over pay for public sector workers this week, following negotiations.
The Government announced in January that frontline public sector healthcare workers would receive the bonus to recognise their unique role during the pandemic.
Those eligible include support staff employed by the HSE such as cleaners, porters, maintenance and catering staff, as well as paramedics and administrative staff who meet the criteria.
Others entitled to the payment are consultants, nurses and midwives, medical laboratory staff, health and social care professionals, and Covid-19 swabbers and vaccinators. However, roll-out of the payment has been slower than anticipated.
Ms Ni Sheaghdha described the delay as ‘extraordinary’, adding that health sector unions have raised the issue with the Oireachtas health committee. ‘The Government made a promise. They made a big deal of the promise and they have absolutely no method of determining whether employers are living up to that or not,’ she said.
A spokesman for the HSE said: ‘Over 26,000 individuals across the health service have received the bonus payment, as of week ending June 3.
‘Processing payments for staff is complex and time consuming, and whilst the pace of payment for the pandemic award was initially slow as assessments regarding qualifying criteria were conducted carefully by local managers, it has significantly picked up over the last payroll period.
‘Whist we cannot say when exactly the final payment will be made, it is our intention to have the majority of eligible employees paid in the coming weeks. We thank staff for their patience whilst we continue to process the payments.’
Nurses also called for mandatory mask wearing to be introduced on public transport in order to prevent surging Covid-19 cases this summer. Anthony Staines, professor of public health systems at DCU, also said that there were a number of things that the Government and individuals could be doing: ‘One is to ensure good ventilation of indoor spaces,’ he told Newstalk.
‘The second is to filter the air in indoor spaces and on public transport.
‘I’m thinking for example in Taiwan, where there are hepa filters on every bus and there’s no reason we can’t do that here. And the third is to wear an SSP2 mask which is the slightly more tight-fitting mask. It’s substantially more effective at reducing transmission.’
Professor Staines added that Ireland is ‘flying blind’ as we do not have enough data on cases. ‘We have a lot of information from the UK,’ he continued. ‘We don’t have information from Ireland and we should have.
‘Because while we do reflect the UK, we can be ahead of them, we can be behind them, we can be more affected by them, less affected by them.
‘And we just don’t know. We’re flying blind at the moment.’
The delay is ‘extraordinary’ ‘Thank staff for their patience’