Nurses to stage lunchtime protests at number of hospitals nationwide

Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) are to hold lunchtime protest at a number of hospitals across the country on Thursday.The staff, who are engaged in a work-to-rule, will be protesting over cost-of-living measures and the impact they are having on staffing levels. Protests will be held at Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, St Vincent’s University Hospital, The Mater, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda, Letterkenny University Hospital, Galway University Hospital, Naas General Hospital and Midlands Regional Hospital, Mullingar.They will take place at most of the hospitals from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.READ MOREThe protests are planned in advance of work stoppages that will begin in the public health service next week. Members of Fórsa, Siptu and INMO began a work-to-rule across large portions of the civil and public service on September 30th.These unions, along with Unite and a number of others, are scheduled to stage a one-day stoppage on October 14th.INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha rejected a comment by Taoiseach Micheál Martin that public sector workers wanted industrial action “irrespective of what happens”.In a post-budget interview with Claire Byrne on Newstalk on Wednesday, Martin said: “I just get the sense that people want industrial action almost now, irrespective of what happens. And that’s a problem. I think that’s wrong.”[ Budget 2027 falls short of preventing public sector industrial action, say unionsOpens in new window ]The Taoiseach was not right, said Ní Sheaghdha. “I think everybody in the country understands the job that public servants do. They respect it. They value it. And right now, public servants are very clearly saying that they don’t believe enough was done in this budget. They don’t believe it was a worker-facing budget,” she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Thursday. Ní Sheaghdha said the last public service agreement expired on June 30th. “Me and my colleagues in the trade union movement have been involved in many negotiations of public service agreements. But what we hadn’t faced previously was that just two weeks prior to that, the minister with responsibility went to Cabinet seeking approval to engage.“There hasn’t been a commitment from Government to really focus on what it means to have a strong industrial relations system which provides for a collective agreement, which provides for industrial peace. And in the absence of that, clearly, you have the opposite, which is exactly what we’re facing next week.”Ní Sheaghdha said industrial action could be avoided, but workers had a right to have their say.“And when workers in thousands across the public service have voted in very large numbers to say we’re not happy with the approach the Government is taking to our dispute, to our pay, to our cost-of-living crisis, which there is, there’s serious, significant cost-of-living issues for all of our members, well, then the Government must listen to that. [ Public sector pay dispute ‘unwarranted given our willingness to talk’, Taoiseach saysOpens in new window ]“To say that public servants are just taking strike action for the fun of it, I think is a little bit glib. And I would think that if we’re serious about trying to find a resolution, I would avoid that type of commentary because it’s absolutely inflammatory,” she told RTÉ.When asked what impact the INMO’s work-to-rule was having on patients, Ní Sheaghdha said her members had been asked not to engage in taking up the work of posts that had not been filled.“The majority of the requests we have from the employer to date is that we would give additional hours and that people would be asked to work and fill vacant posts that haven’t been filled,” she said.“So we know that there’s been a huge embargo in the health service on filling posts, and people are actually doing the job of two people most times when they go to work. And that has been really exposed by the work-to-rule. And that means services have been slower, services have been curtailed and next week, when we have a work stoppage, we understand that the health service will be announcing to the public today that services will be closing.”