Health service managers are seeking to withhold pay increases due to 30,000 nurses from the beginning of June in a move that could trigger industrial action in hospitals.
The managers have cited the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) for breaching benchmarking and Sustaining Progress agreements over an alleged refusal to co-operate with plans for the introduction of new healthcare assistant posts in hospitals.
The INO yesterday said the proposals to withhold increases of 3½ per cent due under benchmarking and Sustaining Progress represented a "retaliatory strike" by health service management as a result of the nurses' recent campaign to highlight problems in accident and emergency departments.
The row over the pay increases comes as the INO is opposing a new health service initiative to tackle overcrowding in accident and emergency departments by moving patients from trolleys into additional beds to be placed in existing wards.
The Irish Times reported on Saturday that the Health Service Executive (HSE) will tomorrow write to hospitals instructing them to start placing additional beds in wards and to seek more flexibility from consultants and nurses in their work practices.
INO general secretary Liam Doran warned yesterday that if the pay increases were withheld, it would cause nationwide reverberations and possible industrial action.
A spokesman for the HSE last night said it was very concerned that the INO had failed to adhere to the terms of the benchmarking and Sustaining Progress agreements under which the increases would be paid.
The HSE has strongly denied that the threat to withhold the pay increases in June was linked in any way to the INO's accident and emergency campaign. It maintained that the INO's refusal to co-operate with the new hospital grades was "an old fashioned demarcation dispute".
INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes last night said the move represented a "serious attempt on spurious grounds to withhold pay increases to 30,000 nurses".
He said that the union had clear evidence that nurses were being "set up" as a retaliation for their involvement in highlighting conditions in accident and emergency departments.
Mr Hughes said the dispute centred around one module out of eight of a training course for healthcare assistants. He said that this involved issues such as the taking of patients' temperatures.
He said that this was a contentious area as it involved nurses devolving work which they had traditionally carried out.
Mr Hughes said that the INO had written five letters to health service managers since last November seeking discussions on these issues but had received no reply.
He said that at the beginning of April health service management had sought an agreement on the introduction of the training module and a few days later had cited the organisation for being in breach of the provisions of benchmarking and Sustaining Progress.
Mr Hughes said that delegates to the INO's annual conference in Killarney later this week will consider emergency motions on both the initiative to place additional beds in existing wards and on the threat to the pay increases.
Mr Hughes said the issue of the citing would now go before the National Joint Council on the Health Services, where both employers and unions are represented, on May 12th. If there was no agreement there and management continued to seek to stop the payments, he said that the matter was likely to be referred to the Labour Court.
A spokesman for the HSE said last night that the move to seek the withholding of the pay increases "predated and was completely separate to the issue of accident and emergency departments".
He said that co-operation with the introduction of the healthcare assistant posts was an integral part of the national pay agreements.
The spokesman said that, in essence, the refusal by the INO to co-operate with the training module was "an old-fashioned demarcation dispute over who did what in hospitals".
He said that the INO objected to healthcare assistants taking patients' temperatures "when every mother in the country takes the temperature of their children perfectly safely".
