A STRIKE at the Mater private hospital in Dublin is set to go ahead on Monday after the breakdown in talks last night at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).
Members of Siptu and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) are due to take part in the strike.
Speaking at the LRC last night, union sources said insufficient progress was made during the talks to warrant calling off the strike.
The action is in protest at moves by management to introduce reductions in pay of between 4 and 5 per cent.
The hospital has maintained that in addition to the recession, it has also had to deal with cutbacks in the VHI’s budget and the National Treatment Purchase Fund’s budget, as well as reductions in public health spending in the Republic and Northern Ireland.
Earlier this week about 20 members of Siptu’s Dublin health services branch staged a lunchtime protest outside the headquarters of the State-owned private health insurer VHI.
Some private hospitals have said the move to introduce pay cuts for staff followed reductions in VHI payments made to them.
Siptu said the picket at VHI formed part of its campaign to have private hospital pay cuts reversed. “The protest outside the VHI is because the health insurance company has so far failed to respond to correspondence seeking information on its funding for these hospitals,” it said.
“The hospital managements have cited cuts in VHI funding as the reason for the reductions in pay and allowances,” it added.
VHI said the issue of pay cuts at the private hospitals was nothing to do with it.
