Health services are set to come under increasing pressure in the run-up to the general election as hospital consultants join nurses in refusing to co-operate with management on a number of fronts. Eithne Donnellan, Miriam Donohoeand John Downesreport.
With nursing unions already planning to escalate their campaign for better pay and working hours from next week, hospital consultants have also voted to take industrial action.
The ballot of over 1,000 members of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) resulted in a majority of more than nine-to-one in favour of the action when the votes were counted last evening.
From Monday week, consultants will refuse to take part in hospital and national committees, and will no longer make themselves available for any meetings with Health Service Executive (HSE) senior management.
They will also refuse to do work which would normally be done by locums except in emergencies.
Their action is in response to a decision by Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE to advertise for 68 new posts on terms which have not been agreed.
The consultants will also boycott the filling of these posts.
IHCA general secretary Finbarr Fitzpatrick said the action was "very modest industrial action", and would not adversely affect patient care.
However, Gerard Barry, chief executive of the HSE employers' agency, said it would impact on patient care.
He expressed regret at the consultants' decision to embark on a campaign of non-co-operation which "will result in disruption of both hospital and other health services".
He urged the IHCA to return to negotiations on a new contract for hospital consultants, from which they withdrew when the 68 posts were advertised.
Ms Harney said the consultants' decision was unnecessary and unjustifiable. The new consultants were badly needed.
The IHCA decision comes as the dispute involving up to 45,000 members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association is about to enter its seventh week with no sign of a resolution. The nurses plan to escalate their action next week.
In the meantime they are continuing with a work-to-rule under which they are refusing to deal with non-essential phone calls or carry out clerical or IT duties. The HSE plans to dock their pay by 13.16 per cent from Friday next as a response.
The decision to cut pay has incensed nurses, and yesterday Taoiseach Bertie Ahern agreed it was provocative. When asked if the move was inflammatory, he said: "You've got it in one. That is throwing oil on waters but you know there's been disruption in the service now for several weeks and the...management people who are trying to hold the issue together, and hold the work together, are under fierce pressure."
Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg also criticised the planned docking of wages. He said it was likely to fail because it was "legally unsound" and would serve to embitter people further.
Mr Begg, who is a member of the National Implementation Body (NIB) which has already held two rounds of talks to try to resolve the nurses' dispute, added: "My fear is that the disputewill become more embedded, will become more intractable, and more divided."
Mr Ahern reiterated his suggestion that an international expert might be asked to look at how the nurses' hours could be reduced. However, this is similar to what was proposed at the NIB talks and rejected by the nursing unions.
The HSE had offered at the talks to carry out a feasibility study to see if nurses' hours could be reduced. The nurses are seeking a 35-hour week - they now work 39 hours - and a 10.6 per cent pay rise.
Mary Conneely of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association said all efforts to resolve the dispute were welcome, but the Taoiseach's suggestion was "nothing new, it's been wheeled out before".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte rejected the Taoiseach's proposal. "I think importing somebody from outside is purely a face-saving suggestion to get us past polling day."