The nurses’ demands appear fair — but their timing is all wrong

Who would begrudge the nurses a few extra quid from a department that is pound foolish,

TWICE in a century. Many people will be surprised to hear it but that’s the number of times nurses have walked off the job in protest.

Like most of us, they moan a lot about how difficult the job is and complain about the pay being inadequate. Yet they are far less militant than our teachers, with whom they are often compared.

On balance, most rightminded people would say ‘give them a pay rise’. Anybody who has had occasion to spend time in a hospital as a patient, or a visitor, understands their value. Alas, the politics of pay is not that simple.

If ‘tea and sympathy’ was the nurses’ demand then we would all boil the kettle and sit down to listen to their plight.

However, the ‘what do we want’ and ‘when do we want it’ chants are far more complex.

It’s not so much what the nurses want that is the problem as the timing. In the run up to last Wednesday’s strike, the Government was inexplicably absent from the debate.

As a press notice from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), issued last Tuesday, said: “The largest strike in the history of the health service looms and the Government seemingly has nothing to say.”

Back in Government Buildings, concern was growing but there is no positive way of ‘spinning’ a nurses’ strike.

Ultimately 35,000 took to the picket lines in perishing conditions while more than 25,000 people had procedures and appointments cancelled.

Health Minister Simon Harris landed back from his paternity leave to tell reporters that the situation was “extraordinarily regrettable”.

In the Dail the Government faced accusations that it either doesn’t understand the nurses’ gripes or isn’t listening. That’s hardly true though. Mr Harris has spent the last fortnight with his wife (a nurse) and their newborn baby, while prior to politics Taoiseach Leo Varadkar worked as a doctor.

They must realise that a nurse’s lot is not huge, especially if they are trying to pay rent or a mortgage in Dublin.

New entrants now come with college qualifications. There is no denying that nurses are paid substantially less (in the region of €7,000) than other healthcare professionals, such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists. And there’s an acceptance that they regularly go beyond the call of duty.

There’s a simple fact behind all of this, which is that we don’t value carers in this country. We occasionally talk about how society couldn’t function without them and then go back to assuming those who work in the caring profession will just get on with it. Platitudes are recorded on payslips.

But here’s the problem. The moneymen on Merrion Street are locked into a pay deal with all the key unions until 2020. The nurses are signed up to this.

In fact, the Government would be within its right to freeze pay increases already due to nurses as a result of their industrial action. That would be a PR disaster but not beyond the realm of possibility if this dispute runs and runs.

The Public Sector Stability Agreement (PSSA) allows for €1.1bn in wage hikes for government employees, including nurses and midwives.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe is terrified that any attempt to step outside this will “generate knock-on or ‘leapfrogging’ claims from the rest of the public service workforce, where there are already other well-aired pay grievances”.

His department insists the INMO is seeking €300m annually based on a 12pc pay claim.

There are two ways of looking at that figure. On one hand it’s a drop in the Department of Health’s black-hole budget that already totals €17bn.

The strike also comes against the backdrop of a row over the new Children’s Hospital which currently amounts to a hole in the ground but is already too big to fail. Nobody seems to know why the bill has spiralled towards €2bn and it’s likely nobody is going to get the blame either. Who would begrudge the nurses a few extra quid from a department that is penny-wise and pound-foolish?

The other way of viewing the €300m is the one being adopted by most pragmatic politicians: a dramatically high starting point that will come down over time.

All of the opposition parties raised the issue in the Dail last week but none had a solution to the strike except the socialists who think everybody else should walk off the job, too.

Fianna Fail ordered government intervention. Dara Calleary said the Taoiseach was like, “Ingrid Miley outside the talks, and giving his commentary on those talks”.

But the party’s position is nuanced, calling for engagement rather than pay hikes.

Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin, who negotiated two pay deals as minister for public expenditure, went a tiny bit further by arguing there is scope for “side deals and special arrangements” to deal with specific issues raised by the INMO, especially in the area of retention and recruitment.

Naturally those further to the left are prepared to hand over the cash without much question.

Sinn Fein says it would be ludicrous to suggest the dispute could be resolved without touching on the issue of pay.

Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger argued that ministers cannot go around “boasting about Ireland being the best performing economy and saying there is no money”.

It’s a fair argument — but her main point was less reasonable: “One would think that the most dangerous thing to happen in Ireland was the public sector pay deal unravelling… All workers, public and private, need a pay rise.”

Tanaiste Simon Coveney wasn’t long telling her that it was dishonest to pretend to people that they can simply go out on strike and get everything they want.

“We are hearing what nurses are saying. We are hearing what the public are saying in terms of their sympathy with nurses but we have to make decisions in a way that is consistent and responsible and linked to agreements already signed up to and to find ways within those parameters of using our imagination in a way that can help and improve work and conditions for nurses,” he said.

The key word there was “imagination”. The nurses strike will be resolved. All industrial actions eventually are — but there won’t be a 12pc pay rise. Instead, the two sides will dream up a concoction of ‘allowances’ and ‘work practice arrangements’ that will tie the situation over until the next round of public sector pay talks.

The Government knows what the nurses want but the risk of undermining the overall pay deal means the answer won’t be budging from ‘not now’.