A dispute in the health service over the provision of key financial data to management in the Health Service Executive and Department of Health is likely to end following Labour Court intervention.
The trade union Impact last night said it would accept a recommendation by the Labour Court aimed at resolving the row provided the HSE agreed to abide by the terms.
It is expected the HSE will accept the Labour Court recommendation following a meeting of management today. The Labour Court said Impact should immediately stop industrial action preventing or limiting the provision of key financial data to management.
Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy also said the HSE should acknowledge that an agreement reached with Impact on the abolition of the health boards in 2004 would continue to have full force unless it was terminated in a deal reached between the parties.
The 2004 deal gave staff in the former health board security of employment on the establishment of the HSE.
As part of wider industrial action over pay cuts, members of Impact in the HSE have been refusing to provide key financial and activity data to management for about three months.
The HSE had sought a derogation for the financial data from the overall industrial action.
However, Impact said it could not do so until it received clarifications on the implications, particularly in relation to job security, of the Croke Park deal on the terms of an agreement signed in 2004 on the abolition of the former health boards.
The HSE had warned that unless the ban was lifted by today it would begin removing staff from the payroll. The Labour Court said certain provisions of the 2004 agreement would have to be adapted to make them compatible with the Croke Park deal if it is ratified. It said these provisions related to areas such as location, the approach to change, structures, reporting relationships and shared service developments. They also related to recruitment and selection for appointment and promotion, education, training and development, bilateral meetings, a common recruitment pool, employment ceilings, outsourcing and procedures.
It said making the necessary adaptations to the terms of the 2004 agreement should be undertaken by the parties immediately and completed within a week.
Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said the court had backed the union on key aspects of the dispute, including the status of the 2004 agreement and its relationship with the Croke Park proposals, should they be accepted.
Minister for Health Mary Harney last night welcomed the court's intervention.
