RTÉ and health watchdog under fire from delegates

RTÉ and HIQA, the health service watchdog, both came under attack at the Irish Nurses’ Organisation’s delegate conference.

INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes got a standing ovation when he rounded on RTÉ’s Pat Kenny for his criticism of public sector pensions.

Mr Hughes said Mr Kenny had “created the impression that public service workers’ pensions are costing the taxpayer a fortune”.

“To Pat Kenny, who constantly describes public service pensions as ‘Rolls Royce pensions’ – he knows a lot about Rolls Royces,” Mr Hughes said to cheers from delegates.

He also criticised an unidentified Morning Ireland broadcaster whom he heard asking a trade union official if he believed public sector workers were lucky to have their jobs.

“No-one is ‘lucky’ to have a job, no-one won their job in a lottery. You have your job based on hard work and delivery of services,” Mr Hughes said, to another standing ovation.

He said some politicians and prominent media people were using “reckless language” in relation to public sector pensions without acknowledging that public sector workers “fund the majority of their pensions”.

Separately, the HIQA was criticised by INO general secretary Liam Doran who said there was a growing sense that HIQA was “not manifesting itself on the ground as a truly independent watchdog that takes no prisoners”.

He said the INO felt it was very close to the Health Service Executive.

“It has the potential to shine a light, but what is the strength of that light and where is the evidence that changes are being made?” Mr Doran asked.

INO delegate Clare Mooney, from Dublin, described the HSE as a “bulldozer” and “a very sophisticated and very complicated team of managers” who needed to “catch Health Minister Mary Harney and HSE chief Professor Brendan Drumm by the scruff of the neck and say ‘what resources are you giving these people to implement our recommendations?’”.

A spokesperson for the HIQA said they carried out their work “without fear or favour to anyone” and were entirely independent.