SIPTU'S Nursing Council is seeking pay parity for its 10,000 members with the State's 3,000 paramedics. A series of pay reviews for paramedics has left nurses the lowest-paid health professionals in the service, according to the union's nursing officer, Mr Oliver McDonagh. The gap between nurses and paramedics ranges from £2,000 a year to £7,000.
The SIPTU pay claim, which could cost the Exchequer £100 million a year, is contained in the union submission to the Benchmarking Body. Other unions representing 30,000 public-sector nurses are making similar claims.
Most paramedics have already received awards worth between 5 per cent and 27 per cent on top of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. Residential childcare workers, who are covered by the same review process, received special increases worth up to 45 per cent because of difficulties in recruiting staff.
The expert review groups for paramedics were set up in 1997 in the wake of a two-week strike. After the strike, paramedics received pay increases worth up to 12.5 per cent, compared with up to 15 per cent for nurses.
Because of concerns by paramedics that the 1997 deal eroded pay differentials with nurses, they were also offered the review groups. The last group of paramedics to be dealt with are radiographers, who are currently voting on a package worth between 5.5 per cent and 27 per cent.
SIPTU officer Ms Jane Boushell, who represents radio graphers, says that the increases will bring senior management grades to more than £38,000 a year when the latest phases of the PPF are included. Voting on the terms concludes in two weeks' time.
Ms Boushell was optimistic that the increases would be accepted. They were badly needed because recruitment and retention had become critical to the development of radiography within the health service. Increases were particularly welcome at the bottom end of the scales, where old rates started as low as £18,000, because of the lack of promotional outlets.
Rates for basic-grade radiographers, backdated to April 1st 2000, will range from £19,069 to £25,404 over 11 years. Basic staff nurse rates range from £16,961 to £24,765 over a 13year scale.
Mr McDonagh said that changes in nursing, including the move to a new degree-based programme, meant that nurses had to be on a par with other health professionals if the terms of the Nursing Commission and Benchmarking Body were to mean anything. Grade II clinical nurse managers (formerly senior ward sisters) were now on a scale which left them £6,000 a year worse off than the equivalent management grade among paramedics.
While some paramedics might argue that their courses were already degree-based, Mr McDonagh said this had not always been the case. The increases to paramedics had reflected the higher skills they had attained and the same arguments now applied for nurses.