Ball now in HSE’s court as union leaves talks on brink of collapse

IT took the HSE and IMPACT trade union 12.5 hours out of the 13 hours of talks to, as one side put it, “lay their cards fully on the table” in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The strategy of the talks was to see what snippets of compromise could be achieved before the two sides would finally address the dreaded “D” word.

The HSE had made it clear, both in the run up and immediately before the Labour Relations Commission process, that failure to furnish them with a derogation from the ongoing public service industrial action would result in suspensions and service cuts.