Talks to avert suspensions of health staff continue
At time of going to press, IMPACT trade union was still refusing to lift the industrial action over pay cuts by its members in the health service, though a position paper was being produced containing concessions which management hoped might lead to a derogation from the action.
As part of their campaign IMPACT members have been refusing to collect and process data on HSE spending and activity for the last three months.
“We are in a very difficult situation. The reality is that we don’t have any sight of our financial or service level performance data,” said HSE human resources director Sean McGrath as the marathon talks session was beginning. “We have a €14.3bn-plus budget in the health service. We have no idea where that money is going, nor do we know the service level quality and, indeed, the type of service we are getting for that.”
The HSE is also in the dark as to whether it is on target to save the €400m in savings required this year.
It emerged earlier this week that management was preparing to suspend staff who refused to carry out their full duties as part of the action and said cuts in services would have to result.
Mr McGrath admitted it was “unacceptable” that staff were still being paid their full salaries in spite of their action. The HSE entered into talks on the Croke Park deal (on public service pay and reform) to engage with IMPACT and the other health unions, he said.
“The likelihood was that we would come out of there with a good result that would suit the taxpayer and suit services. That has not happened at this point in time. The situation is very urgent, critical at this stage (as regards HSE financial spending and service data). We need derogation from the action immediately.”
However, IMPACT assistant general secretary Kevin Callinan warned that if the HSE wanted to “bang the war-drum,” his union would have no difficulty in responding in kind.
“We have a major agreement (the Croke Park agreement) in play at the moment,” he said. “We are looking for clarification. It is completely unrealistic of the HSE to be expecting the change in the current industrial action while those clarifications are being sought.
“We are here to be constructive, to come up with a solution. The attitude of the HSE is being clearly unhelpful at the current time.
“I am not going to get into an argument about what the HSE are saying. The fact is we have had industrial action in place for three month now. There has not been any difficulty about this until now and you have to question the motives of the HSE.”
A major part of the talks was on how the Croke Park deal will impact on a 2004 agreement that gave tenure to health service workers.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
