Schools, courts and hospitals in strike frontline

SCHOOLS, courts and hospitals face crippling mass walkouts as they became the frontline in a rapidly escalating war of attrition between unions and the Government over public sector pay cuts.

More than 300,000 workers were set to take part in coordinated waves of industrial action as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) warned ministers to restore wage rates or deal with the consequences.

Those consequences would include:

* Schools closing for half or full days on a regional or county basis.

* Health service workers staging two-hour stoppages affecting different regions at different times.

* Gardaí refusing to use their own mobile phones, laptops and cameras and not cooperating with management over the conduct of criminal trials.

* Civil servants taking strike action to target specific departments and services.

* Prison officers imposing an overtime ban.

Ministers dug in to resist the pressure, insisting there was no hope of the heightened industrial action forcing a U-turn – but hinted at a deal on future pay rates.

With the details of the final strike action still to be decided, ICTU chairman Peter McLoone said unions wanted a negotiated solution in order to reverse pay cuts, protect future wages and pensions and to avoid compulsory redundancies.

He insisted the action was not unreasonable, given pay cuts that have been as high as 15% for some members.

“Since January 25 we have tried to exert pressure on the Government without widespread disruption to services. We have always said that escalation of the industrial action was inevitable, unless there was progress towards a settlement,” he said.

Gardaí are on a collision course with Justice Minister Dermot Ahern over their threatened action.

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) confirmed their members intend withdrawing on March 22 from an informal system which allows officers appear as witnesses in circuit and high court cases without being summonsed.

GRA vice-president Damien McCarthy said: “We will merely be strictly enforcing the principles of law, whereby Garda witnesses should be formally summonsed to appear.”

Meanwhile, Irish National Teachers Organisation secretary general Sheila Nunan said teachers were ready to shut down schools because the Government has “ignored” rising anger in the public sector over the unilaterally imposed wage cuts.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe said the threat of future wage reductions could be lifted if unions agreed more flexible working regimes but insisted pay cuts already imposed would not be reversed.