Nurses’ threat to escalate action lifted

THE threat of escalated industrial action by more than 7,000 psychiatric nurses nationwide was lifted last night following what appeared to be a successful conclusion to talks brokered by the Labour Relations Commission.

As part of the framework of proposals aimed at settling the dispute over a compensation scheme for nurses who are assaulted at work by patients, nurses are being offered compensation of between €5,000 and €100,000 for serious injury while the list of types of injuries covered has been increased to 52.

These and other proposals will be put before the executives of the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association and SIPTU tomorrow for formal acceptance.

With the acceptance of union bosses, the proposals will be put to a ballot of SIPTU and PNA members.

Last night, Des Kavanagh of the PNA said the threat of escalated industrial action, from today, has been lifted.

The overtime ban, which has been in operation for the past two weeks, will end tomorrow.

A number of community services have in the past fortnight been closed or scaled back as management transferred staff to the hospital sector during the overtime ban.

In the talks, the unions had argued the levels of compensation on offer under the Health Service Executive compensation scheme were less than those set out under the Personal Injuries Assessment Board system established by the Government.

Last night, SIPTU nursing official Louise O’Reilly said the proposals represented “significant progress”.

Meetings to consider the proposals could not take place today because of a roundtable conference on the working week for all nurses, which nursing union representatives would be attending at University College Dublin.