Trade unions have warned that they may take industrial action over the plan to shed 600 health sector jobs.
The threat emerged last night as Minister for Health Mary Harney signalled she wants to see a major shift in employment policy in the health services, with hundreds of administrative jobs going to allow for the recruitment of additional doctors, nurses and other frontline personnel.
In a letter sent to the interim chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE) in February, Ms Harney said she wanted "a more appropriate balance between clinical and non-clinical posts, both in relation to the HSE itself and to voluntary service providers".
A spokesman for Ms Harney told The Irish Times that overtime the Department of Health needed to be moved towards a 60/40 ratio between clinical and non-clinical staff in the health services. At present, the ratio is 55 per cent clinical to 45 per cent non- clinical.
But her immediate plan to cut 600 jobs in the health sector to comply with Government employment ceilings has angered some unions. Irish Nurses' Organisation director of industrial relations Liam Doran said last evening that industrial action over the plan had not been ruled out after the issue was discussed with health service employers yesterday. Employers had failed to provide "satisfactory" answers to questions on where the cuts would be made.
Employers, he added, were in breach of the Sustaining Progress deal in deciding without consultation or agreement with unions. He claimed the job losses would interfere with patient care, something denied by HSE interim chief executive Kevin Kelly, who said frontline staff would not be affected. Mr Kelly said he couldn't see any grounds for industrial action by the INO or other health sector unions.
Siptu national nursing official Oliver McDonagh said that, while the HSE was claiming the 600 jobs would be cut in administration, there was no way they could be cut without having a knock-on effect on "already understaffed frontline areas like accident and emergency".
The meeting under the auspices of the National Joint Council took place yesterday against a backdrop of more than 300 patients on trolleys in overcrowded A&E units across the State.
It emerged that 450 operations and 339 outpatient appointments have been cancelled in one hospital alone so far this year as a result of overcrowding. These have taken place at Letterkenny General.
Mr Kelly said he didn't believe there were surplus jobs in administration in the health sector at present, but he believed over time there would be a surplus as reforms took effect. Other jobs, he said, would have to be found for those people as there would be no involuntary redundancies.