Industrial action by more than 80,000 healthcare workers that threatened to bring widespread disruption to HSE and other services from Monday morning has been averted after overnight talks between management and unions at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) produced a deal.
A 24-hour stoppage at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda by members of the five unions involved in the dispute over staffing levels – the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Fórsa, Connect, Unite and the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association – scheduled for Thursday has also been called off following the agreement.
A separate but related dispute involving the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) – which commenced a work-to-rule last Wednesday – continues. However, speaking outside the WRC on Sunday morning, HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said further talks in relation to the issues involved are planned for Monday and “hopefully by this time tomorrow, or not much later than that, the work to rule by the PNA will also be suspended”.
The wider deal, reached after 25 hours of talks that started on Saturday morning, provides for a greater emphasis on the provision of maternity leave cover across the health sector and greater union input to the process that results in the setting of limits on pay and staff numbers.
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The six-page document also contains renewed commitments by the HSE to reduce the organisation’s reliance on agency workers – something that has consistently grown in recent years – quicker decision making and processes in relation to filling vacancies, a review of vacant jobs said to have been lost when staff numbers were set at the end of 2023, recruitment of nursing graduates, and a development programme for medical scientists.
Mr Gloster said, however, the workforce had grown by more than 20 per cent in the last five years and the fact the unions had acknowledged the legitimacy of setting limits represented an important step forward. The ceiling on numbers for this year would remain unchanged, he said.
The agreement commits the HSE to making “every effort” to cover maternity leave taken by staff but, he said, this would also be done within the confines of the set ceiling on staff numbers.
Overall, the deal is understood to not specifically commit the HSE to any additional spend.
In relation to budgeting, he said, “When the health service makes its submission to the Minister for next year’s service plan, the workforce will have had its opportunity to say what its priorities are and the Minister will have all of that in front of her when she goes in to negotiate.”
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In a statement on Sunday, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill welcomed the agreement and the fact that disruption to healthcare services anticipated over coming days had been averted.
“This agreement ensures patient safety and continued delivery of all essential services,” she said. “Patients can be assured that scheduled appointments will go ahead as planned.”
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Speaking shortly after the talks concluded, Phil Ní Sheaghdha of the INMO said the unions would now ballot their members on the agreement but that those representatives present were satisfied important progress had been made, particularly in relation to maternity cover provision. She said maternity cover “was a red line for us”, with thousands of cases of such statutory leave having previously been covered on an ad hoc basis.
She believed union input to the process for setting staff levels for 2026 would result in higher numbers, while the allocation of resources would be more appropriate to patient needs because it would take account of the experience of frontline staff.
“The point that I think these proposals set out very clearly,” she said, “is those workers have a right to have a say in how that workforce is arrived at, and the numbers.”
The view was echoed by Fórsa’s head of health and welfare division, Ashley Connolly, who said the unions were “very committed to the workforce planning” but the new procedures agreed “will alert to us to what is required to deliver safe staffing for all our grades”.
