Dental school teachers threaten strike
The dental school and hospital plans to cut sessions provided by around 30 part- time clinical teachers as part of a package of cost-saving measures it is implementing to deal with a cut in funding from the Health Service Executive and Higher Education Authority.
The dental school and hospital said it was left with no alternative but to reduce its level of service and stressed that all management decisions took full account of the needs of students.
The clinical teachers, who are paid by the session, are members of the Irish Dental Association (IDA). The university said it had been involved in negotiations with the IDA about the contractual issues since July 2007.
IDA chief executive Fintan Hourihan described the cutbacks as “draconian” and warned they would have serious consequences for both students and patients attending the hospital.
Mr Hourihan said the cutbacks include closing the hospital’s afternoon clinics, currently attended by around 100 patients weekly.
He said the hospital and dental school was also planning to reduce the number of teaching sessions by 25% and was refusing to discuss alternative saving proposals.
Mr Hourihan said the result of the ballot would be known on Wednesday, but he was expecting a strong vote in favour of industrial action.
The matter was jointly referred to the conciliation service of the Labour Relations Commission, with conciliation conferences held in June 2008 and in January this year.
The university said that while it was “amenable” to having the matter referred to the Labour Court, the IDA did not agree to this referral and informed the university on February 17 last that a ballot of its members was under way.
