TOP-LEVEL nursing staff in some of the country’s largest hospitals have been awarded sums of between €6,853 and €7,412 by a rights commissioner in compensation for bonus payments which were withheld by the HSE.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA)said yesterday that the Rights Commissioner Service had upheld their case that the refusal of the HSE to make performance-related payments, due in 2008, represented an illegal deduction under the Payments of Wages Act 1991.
The unions said the case involved 28 staff in director of nursing posts in major hospitals as well as directors of mental health and directors of public health nursing. While the bonus payments were made to staff in some areas they were not paid to those in other locations when it was due in 2009.
The trade unions also maintained that while the Government reduced the level of pay cuts which were originally planned for some top civil and public servants last December to take account of the elimination of the performance-related bonus scheme – which averaged 10 per cent of salary – this principle had not been applied to the directors of nursing in the main hospitals.
INMO director of industrial relations Phil Ní Sheaghdha said yesterday: “We are satisfied that the rights commissioner upheld this claim, as these nurses manage areas of high activity in very difficult circumstances and were singled out by the HSE for non-payment of this performance-related pay.”
PNA deputy general secretary Seamus Murphy said that the Rights Commissioner Service decision was important as it corrected “a clearly unlawful event, which only applied to nurses”.
The HSE declined to comment yesterday.