Efforts to end a row that has led to a four-month delay in opening a €15m psychiatric facility received a major setback after nurses last night unanimously rejected proposals by the Labour Relations Commission.

With plans to open an acute psychiatric unit at Cork University Hospital running five months behind schedule, a senior HSE manager has issued a plea to nursing staff to transfer to the new facility.

A ballot has been deferred on LRC proposals designed to end a row that has kept a new €15m psychiatric unit closed following claims that managers are leaning on staff to vote in favour of the proposals.

Conciliation talks to resolve a row over staffing that has led to a three-month delay in the opening of a new €15m psychiatric unit at Cork University Hospital (CUH) are under way at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

“In the carefully controlled media environment of the HSE, it’s rare for an employee to speak out”

Siptu has called for the appointment of an independent expert to carry out a review of the clinical concerns that have led to a three-month delay in opening a new €15m psychiatric unit at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

IT IS possible to argue that not one Government minister has been as influential in their particular fiefdom as garda whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson have been in our police force. 

The Psychiatric Nurses Association has said it will not take part in talks designed to defuse a row over the opening of a psychiatric facility unless a nurse put off duty for airing his concerns in the media is allowed return to work.

A mental health nurse who went public with his concerns about a new psychiatric unit has been suspended indefinitely.

IT’S almost a year since legislation — the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 — to protect whistleblowers came into force but it seems the spirit of that legislation has yet to have as positive an impact it might.

Nursing staff are refusing to move into CUH’s new acute mental health unit as its agenda is being driven by politics and economics, not patient need, writes Des McSweeney