More than 10,000 health workers set to strike for a day in October

Siptu said the industrial action will impact 30 hospitals. Picture: Alamy/PA

More than 10,000 health workers across Ireland will go on strike in October over public service pay negotiations.

Union Siptu described the planned industrial action that will impact 30 hospitals as a “significant intensification” of its campaign for “dignity, fairness, and financial certainty for workers”.

The escalation comes after what Siptu described as the Government’s “continuing failure” to establish a forum for negotiations on a successor public service pay agreement following the expiry of the current agreement at the end of June.

Siptu health divisional organiser Kevin Figgis said members have shown “extraordinary patience” since the current public service agreement expired.

“They have continued to provide essential health services while facing soaring costs for food, fuel, electricity, gas, rent, and mortgages,” he said.

“Yet the Government has failed to provide any meaningful forum where public service unions can engage on a new pay agreement which addresses the concerns of our members.”

He added: “If the Government continues to ignore the legitimate concerns of public servants, our members will have no option but to proceed with a full day of strike action on October 14.

“The responsibility for avoiding that outcome rests squarely with the Government.

“Health workers cannot continue to absorb the impact of escalating living costs while their demand for a pay agreement which is suitable to meet the growing financial crisis on their families remains ignored.

“Time is running out. A different approach is urgently required.”

Mr Figgis further stated: “This dispute is not about taking action for the sake of it. It is about securing dignity, fairness, and financial certainty for workers who keep public services functioning through some of the most challenging periods in the history of the state.

“Our members voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial and strike action because they know the status quo is no longer sustainable.”

Trade union action on scale not seen since 2009, says Labour TD

Speaking on Tuesday, ahead of a sitting of the Dáil, Labour TD Ged Nash said Ireland will see trade union action on a scale not witnessed since 2009 if the Government does not address ongoing public sector pay disputes in the coming budget.

He said the budget announcements of the last three years have been “works of fiction”, and warned this year’s might be no different.

“This budget will be a work of fiction if it does not accommodate a sum of money to allow for a deal on public sector pay and reform to be negotiated”, the Labour Party’s spokesperson on finance said.

“At this point in time, the minister for public expenditure (Jack Chambers) has ducked and dived, and has abrogated his responsibilities to those who work for the state, to try to sit down and discuss in a meaningful way, the successor agreement to the public sector pay deal that expired last June.

“Every month that passes by saves the minister for public expenditure €100m in terms of expenditure, and that happens to be about the cost of keeping the excise goods going for another period of time.

“So that’s a convenient position for the minister to be in politically.”

He added: “(Mr Chambers) will have a real political problem come October 14, when the public sector unions en masse decide to withdraw their labour as they are entitled to do and go on a national strike.

“And in my view, it is no coincidence that the last time we had this kind of militant and legitimate industrial action across the public service was the last time that Fianna Fáil were in government when they destroyed the country.”