Brian Cowen, Urges nurses to call off strike
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, "Government cannot ignore Labour Court rulings"
The Minister for Health has written to the Nursing Alliance urging them to call off Tuesday's threatened nationwide strike. Brian Cowen said it was a matter of deep regret that nurses were going to embark on strike action over issues that had been exhaustively addressed. He went on to say that he believed a strike is not necessary and that there are better ways for the nurses to advance their claims.
The Irish Cancer Society has also appealed to all sides in the nursing dispute to return to the negotiating table. The Chief Executive of the Society said that any disruption to cancer treatment and support services would cause serious hardship and distress to patients, their families and carers. Cancer specialist John Crown, of Saint Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, said that patients might die if the nurses' strike went ahead.
There has been a call for the intervention of the Employer-Labour Conference in an effort to prevent the nationwide nurses' strike, due to begin on Tuesday. The call from the Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, followed a warning from the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, earlier today, that the Government could not concede the nurses' pay demands. Many outpatient services at hospitals around the country are expected to be cancelled from Monday.
The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, has rejected suggestions that the Government could still intervene to prevent the strike planned by the country's nurses for Tuesday from taking place. Ms. Harney said that the Government cannot respond on the basis of a "give in or else" ultimatum from the nurses. She said that to do so would be unacceptable, because of the negative knock-on effects it would have on the economy.
She also said that, if the Government gave into the nurses' pay demands, then it would have a huge impact on other areas of the public service. Ms Harney accepted that it now seemed inevitable that the nurses' strike will go ahead on Tuesday. She appealed to nurses to think again, saying that a strike would have very damaging consequences for the health services and for the most vulnerable people in society.
Mr. Ahern told RTÉ News that the success of the Irish economy was based on social partnership and that the government could not break its own rules and ignore labour court rulings. However, that view has been rejected this afternoon by the largest nurses' union, the Irish Nurses' Organisation. Speaking on RTÉ Radio this morning, the medical director of St Patrick's hospital in Dublin, Dr. Anthony Clare, said that the success of the economy was itself partly responsible for the nurses' demands.
