Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated at 11.04am
TODAY MARKS THE third day of industrial action taken by nurses and midwives over a dispute about pay and working conditions.
Thousands of patient procedures have been postponed due to the strikes. It’s estimated that 37,000 nurses and midwives are on strike; there are three further days of strike action planned for next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
These will include mental health appointments, as psychiatric nurses and their ambulance staff have also announced that they will join the strike action next Friday.
This is over the government’s refusal to recognise their union, Nasra.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Deputy General Secretary of the INMO David Hughes defended claims that the public sector agreement was a sealed agreement, and that opening it to raise nurses’ pay would “open up the door for a pay free-for-all”, as claimed by Sunday Times columnist Cormac Lucey.
“If Clause 3 in the Public Sector Pay Agreement had that been properly honoured we wouldn’t be in this strike situation,” Hughes said. “It said that if anything is done to solve recruitment and retention issue, there will be no sectoral claims.”
He added that Clause 4 of the Agreement concerned new entrants, and said that they would be valued and their pay dealt with after the agreement, but that it was “now being solved within the agreement”.
The Department of Expenditure and Public Reform (DEPR) said that it would solve the issue, which it hasn’t.
Out on the picket line at the Coombe maternity hospital on Dublin’s southside, the nurses were receiving the usual high-level of support from the public they have experienced on previous days of strikes – mainly expressed through near-constant beeping from passing motorists.
Nurses are eager to stress that the continuing strike action isn’t an easy move to take, and that anyone arriving at the Coombe today will receive the care they need.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Nicole Mention, currently working as a midwife stenographer, told TheJournal.ie.
“We really are worried about the state of the health service,” she added, explaining that the “neglect that has gone on for years and years” needs to stop.
It’s not about pay, it’s about safe care. It’s about the care that people deserve.
This was echoed by Laura McGovern, an oncology liaison nurse at the Coombe:
“We have horrific staffing levels in Ireland at the moment. We can’t retain any nurses – every young nurse is just on the plane, they’re gone, straight away.”
McGovern said that with better staffing levels, better care could be given to patients, and the difficult in doing this right now takes a toll on nurses themselves:
You can’t go home and feel that you’ve done your job well.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Communications Minister Richard Bruton said the government believes engagement is needed and that the Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court could be useful.
Asked whether the government is prepared to discuss pay increases with the nurses, he said this would only be possible as part of a wider discussion on public sector pay.
“The only precondition that the Taoiseach has set out is that he wants the solution to this to be fair, to be affordable to the taxpayer and not to have a greater knock-on impact on 400,000 other public servants who need to be treated fairly,” he said.
We are prepared to talk about pay in the context of an agreement that is collectively negotiated and those agreements bind everyone. I’m not going to start negotiating on the airwaves because I can’t do that. What we need to do here is get into a room with both sides so.
A recent Claire Byrne Live/ TheJournal.ie poll found that 74% of respondents said they supported the nurses’ action.
With reporting from Daragh Brophy, Rónán Duffy, and Nicky Ryan
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
They can pay doctors, politicians, builders, architects & consultant but not nurses? W@nkers.
@SmidgenDublin: they do pay nurses, useless comment!
@Ciaran Bolger: But not enough.
@Ciaran Bolger: “They do pay nurses, useless comment!”
@Mac Dara Powell: how much is “enough”?
@Mac Dara Powell: but no enough for the skills, training, responsibility they have and contribution to society they make.
@GrumpyAulFella: enough would probably be when there are enough applications submitted for vacant posts so that the employer can be confident they can recruit a suitably competent / skilled person
It’s not the responsibility of the INMO to be worrying about other public service departments pay the nurses are grossly underpaid as it is.
@Liam Neeson: how do you define grossly underpaid … also what is a fair wage for 45000 nurses
@Liam Neeson: average 57k ?? Grossly underpaid??
@Ciaran Bolger: where did that average come from? Have a look at the pay scales and you’ll see staff nurse pay tops out way below that. Way below that of other professions too. There are ways to increase pay, like working lots of overtime and working night shifts more than day shifts.
@Adam Power: strike not for staff nurse pay but ALL nurses pay. Staff nurse pay scales always trotted out but not relevant when strike is for ALL nurses including those that manage the health service
@Ciaran Bolger: The top wage for a staff nurse after 15 years service is €45000. That €57000 is the average of every nurse from the top of management to the just qualified student and divided by the number of nurses. If you had a company with 11 staff. The CEO gets paid €1000000 and the other 10 staff get paid €50000 each. That’s a wage bill of €1500000 and divided by 11 is €136000. So the average wage of the company is €136000 based on that calculation. Can you not see what the government is doing peddling these lies that the average wage is €57000? Do your own research and don’t believe everything you read especially from a government in the middle of an industrial dispute which is essentially a public image war.
@Ciaran Bolger: people need to stop bandying the figure around as it was plainly pulled out of thin air, I have yet to meet a nurse on 57k… It’s so goddamn irritating…
Random journal commenters: according to the politicians who don’t want to pay them more and rte nurses are on €57,000 what are they complaining about how is that not well paid?
Nurses: we’re not getting paid €57,000 in fact the vast majority of us have wages far lower than that
Random journal commenters: …..
…..HOW was €57,000 not well paid!?
@Ciaran Bolger: Politicians would take that in secret unvouched expenses. That 57,000 would be to little for them. Yet they contribute SFA when compared to what nurses do.
@Liam Neeson: it is the INMO responsibility were they not involved in the collective bargaining for all public servants. If the nurses say this is not about pay and the average is 56k then that 12% they are looking for will also be added to overtime allowances etc. Bring in a decent rate of pay for incoming nurses and reduce the ludicrous 16 year pay scale. If you are not at the top of your game after 6 years your employer is taking the piss.
@Liam Neeson: so are plenty other public servants. Clerical officers in the civil service start on 25k which is considerably lower. Executive officers also lower at 29k.
@Leo Fitzgerald: “If you are not at the top of your game after 6 years your employer is taking the piss”
Talking about the government here, to piss taking is a given.
Just for comparison:
All grades of Hospital doctor (from SHO to Specialist registrar) reach the top of the payscale after, at most, 7 years.
Top of Garda rank pay scale reached after 19 years.
Top of teacher pay scale reached after 27 years.
@Keith Simcox: thanks for explaining what an average is. Had no idea!. Point is that nurses on strike to increase pay of ALL nurses which includes managers administrators and those not working in stressed or short staffed areas
@Sarah: what are you talking about. There are nurses on 80k!. What you may mean is that you have never met a STAFF nurse in 57k but there are plenty of nurses paid way in excess of even 57k who are also in for a pay hike if the strike succeeds
@Ciaran Bolger: and there are surgeons on a million that’s not even remotely representative of the majority. Are you seriously implying that nurses shouldn’t seek fair wages because some nurses, somewhere are making more than them? Hahaha love the logic there ..
@Sarah: There may be surgeons on a million, or even more, but they are not being paid that million out of public money. They are earning it through private patients.
@Sarah: no, I have total support for frontline nurses seeking better pay and conditions. However when u seek across the board pay rises for all nurses, including those that manage the system you remove any possibility of keeping nurses onthe frontline because they are still incentivised to move to better paid admin jobs. The frontline nurses should be the highest paid, so I don’t agree with a pay rise that maintains the status quo, increases the pay of nurses that are already well. If not overpaid, incentivises nurses to leave the frontline and rewards the very people who are responsible for managing a completely miss managed system
@Ciaran Bolger: It’s a bit unfair to hold nurses in managerial roles responsible for the failings of the whole system, don’t you think? They are nurse managers, they can potentially be held responsible for any failings there, but they are not hospital managers and certainly not the managers of the department of health.
@Gerard McDermott: yes they are. CEO’s of our teaching hospitals and deputyCeos’s mostly nurses. Everyone of the ceos of our hospital groups except 1 are nurses. Last head of the HSE, tony o Brien was a nurse. Suspect you are right about department of health tho
There are many issues that nurses can genuinely point to, the trolley crisis, patient safety etc. however they’re linking all of these to pay. They’re claiming all of these issues can be solved if they’re paid more, this is simply untrue. They’re looking at other colleagues, in other grades and asking why are they paid X, Y and Z, I want the same, I want parity. Well here’s what everyone gets;
Nurses had signed up to the agreement last year and have now turned their back on it, it not rocket science to say there’s only so much money in the pot, only so much money to pay increases to the entire Public Service. If they’re given their demands that’ll cost an additional €300 million which will mean the rest of the PS cannot get what they’re entitled to, low paid workers won’t get their increases. But the nurses will be happy, for now.
@Arch Angel: majority of people want people in front line public services paid well. The problem is that the rest of the public sector unions will immediately demand more money, regardless of how unsustainable it is and regardless of how well paid the people they represent are. It’s a terrible situation.
Why does the headline carry a hash tag beneath it reading “stand with nurses”?
Is the Journal taking sides on this issue now?
The bias appears strongly evident.
@Jaycee Laycee: I’d imagine it’s because if you search on google for #standwithnurses It will bring up this site, generating traffic.
Have to laugh at the narrative being pushed here. FG reneged on its pledge to fully reverse the FEMPI measures, but is trying to convince people that its the public service that are less than honest brokers.
@The Risen: They have not reneged they have said as recent as last Autumn they want to fully reverse FEMPI but not at once. It was quoted extensively.
The unions signed up to the reversal over time, now the Inmo are breaking that agreement.
Reversing FEMPI at once would increase our already huge debt and would break the EU budgetary pact.
Those are simply the facts of the situation.
Some might feel higher national debt is a good thing but those who work and are burdened with high income tax really don’t want to be paying for increase interest.
I wouldn’t be a fan of our government but on this they are correct
@The Risen: ah sure, but you know apparently all the nurses are on €57,000!! (Which let’s be honest after tax doesn’t get you very far if you live in any Irish city or large town) Did you not hear that? They’re just being greedy!
@Sarah: 57k doesn’t go far, some lifestyle some are having.
@Paul O Mahoney: True, most, if not all, of the PS signed up to the Public Service Stability Agreement 2013-2018, including the nursing unions, who then promptly broke it again. The government, who granted, had dragged their feet on this issue, had finally committed to pay all PS’s who signed the agreement 7% by 2020. Personally I feel if they took A with a commitment to pay it back by B date then just do so, there shouldn’t be preconditions and agreements. In a manner of speaking they’ve made a rod for their own backs with all this subterfuge.
The nurses meanwhile are being less than honest with the public by linking their claims of patient safety and staff retentions issues with a pay claim. In reality this is just a simple money grab for them, they’ve seen what other grades earn and want more money, they’re exploiting the publics heart strings. They’re hoping the nation, and other PS’s, support them while they take all the available money in the pot, but they won’t support others.
@Arch Angel: 100% agree, its very difficult to agree with the union when they are the ones who broke the agreement that they signed up to.
On a broader point its very hard for any government to control the public purse if what they thought was agreed is actually not worth the paper its written on.
Nowhere in commercial life would a breach like this be tolerated, it would be immediately sent to the commercial court for adjudication.
Of course the claptrap that should they get what they want, it wouldn’t affect others in the PS…..every union would do the same.
Our debt wasn’t caused by the banks alone, we had to borrow billions since the crash to simply keep the lights on, but now many are clamouring for a return to boom and bust.
Will we ever learn?
@Paul O Mahoney: “They have not reneged they have said as recent as last Autumn they want to fully reverse FEMPI but not at once.”
They have no intention of reversing the effective 6% cut in hourly rate brought in as a temporary measure. It was not even allowed on the table for discussion for the latest agreement.
@The Risen: Then why did the unions sign up for it?
And can you please link to what you said regarding the 6% cut in hourly rate not being reversed, just for verification purposes.
I doubt very much that the unions would have signed if as you claim the 6% cut wouldn’t be reversed.
If its true, the unions threw its members under another bus.
@The Risen: really? How so? It is reversing FEMPI. Wage increases, PRD pared back to ASC taking more out of the net. Any evidence to support your claim?
@Paul O Mahoney: If you want to qualify for a mortgage in Dublin on a singe income it sure as hell doesn’t…
We mustn’t forget it was the politicians that started this whole thing off by the various financial increases they were giving themselves.
@Adrian: Of course this is nonsense. They avail of the same increases as other public servants. Are you suggesting that public servants should not get pay restoration?
@For Goodness Sake: i’m not talking about pay for the politicians. They claim ridiculuous amounts in expenses. Almost everything is paid for the politicians through their expenses claims, so you can’t really compare what politicians get paid to live on, with the rest of the public sector.
@For Goodness Sake: this public sector pay agreement really means nothing. The politicians largely live off their expenses, but conveniently bring out this public sector pay agreement argument to justify not giving other public sector workers while claiming the max of all their expense allowances which are already very generous.
I wish the media would stop calling this a pay increase. It’s restoration of pay that has been withheld.
@Tom Tom: no it’s not, it’s about getting a pay rise to match other graduates
@Tom Tom: in the private sector where we suffered job losses and similar reductions we call these annual performance related pay increases. Some times you get one some times you don’t. We don’t call them annual performance related pay restoration. But perhaps we should for sympathy.
here we go again
money for everyone
@Flippermac: I mean they could undo their own pay rises in a show of solidarity if they simply can’t afford to reinstate pay for other civil servants…
@Sarah: I thought those payrises are part of the overall agreement negotiated with the unions, thats designed to reverse FEMPI overtime. Agreements are meant to be kept by all sides.
@Flippermac: *only if u work in public sector. The rest of us have to pay for it.
@Vincent #SaveDaredevil: true and in 5 years when the ship hits a iceberg
no life jacket for me
@Paul O Mahoney: I was being facetious.
You can be your life that a nurses payrise would lead to public sector ‘free-for-all’. Would all the people honking horns in support be happy to have top end tax increases to pay for pay rises across the whole of the public sector. And please enlighten me…how would a pay rise for well enough paid medical staff make the hospital lists decrease?. They signed an agreement already so should just abide by it until it lapses. Then they can renegotiate for whatever. During the crash many people in the private lost jobs,savings and homes. The public sector had to take some financial hits but kept their jobs. They might remember that
Stick with it lads. The public are behind ye.
A full scale spin operation by FFG in an attempt to turn people away from their rightful support of nurses. Pay the nurses.
Watching the Dail debate this morning was painful Minister’s Harris and Donohue said they wanted to be fair to other public servants no word about being fair to nurses.
Did any other public servant say they didn’t want nurses to get a fair pay for the work, responsibility, and their contribution to society. ? The same Minister Donohue wants to left the cap on €500,000 on bankers pay to get better bankers from abroad but won’t apply the same logic to bring home Irish nurses.
@Charles Williams: Nurses are public servants. So, if the government conceeds all the other unions will do the same.
To say they won’t is fanciful, and a dereliction of duty on the unions.
Unions rarely comment on others disputes, as there is money to be made.
@Charles Williams: its crazy stupid stuff. Yesterday these two muppets were squirming through their excuses as to how their gov depts wasted over 1 billion of taxpayers money while they’re both still fully expecting to keep their jobs.
There is shortfall of over 2000 frontline nurses for decade plus in 2017 there were 9000 nurses over 50years entitled to retire at 60 years (in 2027)so that is why there should be a sence of URGENCY on Government’s part to sort this out!There is flexibility where eg retention and recruitment a concern.I have shown the facts re understaffing now plus in 8years time 9000 nurses entitled to retire!!Plus population estimated to increase to 1.85m+ over 30-33 years.
I despair at the failure yet again to recognise crisis after crisis developing into emergencies!IF Government recognised this,there would have been fully engaged talks last year re ALL the nurses concerns!
How can Government who sees how Brexit could affect Ireland…fail to recognise National emergencies in Ireland NOW and effects on Irish society,etc!!
@Nuala Mc Namara: Great post, however for this issue to be resolved would require pragmatism from everyone but that has been in short supply in Ireland since the dawn of time.
@Nuala Mc Namara: You repost the same “stuff” again and again. You still miss the point that giving the nurses a pay rise will do little or nothing to resolve the health issues.
@For Goodness Sake: I use facts,figures,& common sense in my posts & I’ve no patience for spin& deflection from very serious issues AFFECTING PATIENTS as well as FRONTLINE staff CONSTANTLY highlighted by nurses, doctors and consultants! Despite your weak transparent attempt to dismiss my comments as “stuff”, you’re unable to adequately debate them one by one!
Pay restoration will tackle retention and recruitment crisis,more nurses will tackle understaffing in hospitals,reducing stressful unsafe work conditions will equally tackle retention, recruitment and nurses retiring (9000 nurses due to retire in 8years!),more nurses more wards open when provided,etc&all of these are what’s needed for PATIENTS too because because the very best care,health&safety in hospitals for patients and frontline staff and outcomes for patients are what matters to nurses,they have year after year been highlighting these issues.
Time for ffg to go…
There is an easy fix to this…. We need special legislation enacted immediately. We need to unhook all front line public workers from the rest of the civil service. IE Nurses, midwives, ambulance workers, doctors, guards and firemen. Everyday these people show up for work they are saving lives. There decisions could affect the lives of our parents, aunties, uncles and children. One bad call and they die.
Pay them what there worth. Pay them more than they are worth. In my opinion a nurses salary should start at 35k and top out at 100k. If a nurse doesn’t show up for work people die. If an assistant to the minister for finance doesn’t show up to work, there is no risk. Its the same for teachers and other civil servants. I’m sorry but when the S@@t hits the fan no one calls for a teacher to come and save someones life.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: I also meant to add, the govt have no issue enacting special legislation to bail out bankers. Charles Haughey enacted legislation to bail out his friend Larry Goodman in the 1990′s. We will have depend on nurses at some stage in our lives.. pay them what they are worth and take the pressure off them.
What a joke of a country we live in. Yesterday, harris was explaining why his dept has wasted 1 billion plus of taxpayers money while still fully expecting to keep his job. Today, he’s telling the nurses the gov has no money for their pay increase.
@Adrian: what other sector of society could you have a fella in a job who is so wasteful with the money he’s supposed to manage, and expect to keep his job. Even the biggest companies in the world wouldn’t accept this incompetence and mismanagement in their workforce.
OH yes it will
Why not use my simple solution – give the nurses and indeed the young hospital docs a “critical workers tax credit” of €5000 per annum. They would be all that much better off without breaching tbe civil service pay deal.
@Rory Quinn: Great idea, however everyone else in the PS would want the same. Equality, parity of esteem, et al would be dragged up to justify everyone getting it.
Is union lady being sidelined.?her deapty seems to be doing all the radio shows. Is dare a split in the camp.?heard him on Sean o rourke show he seems to b prepared to talk with no preconditions.
The rest of us workers in health are watching very closely.. what’s good for one ground is good enough for the rest of us
Shortage of young nurses, How about investing in the nurses at college level? It’s a 4 year course @3k registration fee each year, waive this fee on condition you stay and work for HSE for 2-3 years,On an agreed suitable salary…
At present foreign recruitment agencies are in the colleges offering nurses jobs to leave … and they do…
obviously it’s more complicated than this but there might be some merit in the idea?
It was a bit farsical yesterday when harris appeared at the pac meeting, surrounded by the civil servants and officials from his own dept (who are all probably qualified for their jobs, except harris), and at a time when we have a housing crisis, and still have austerity taxes (usc), and harris defends his 1 billion wastage of taxpayers money by saying, “look, lets forget about the money, ye’ll all be delighted when its built”, followed today by “i have no money for yer pay increases”.
Unfortunately, the nurses may find the public turning from them the longer it drags on. That’s simply human nature, the goodwill only lasts a limited time under duress.
There should b moves by the government to sort this dispute immediately .Listening and reading about the torture very sick people are enduring Leo Varadkar should b all over this pronto.Im not saying the INMO are right in everything. they are saying and doing .But the government must move straight away.We are talking about the very essence of life.Im sure people have already lost their lives
Sonographer not stenographer
have your say