This afternoon.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) join their  colleagues in the Irish Nurses And Midwives Organisation (INMO) in declaring strike action over pay and staff shortages.

Psychiatric nurses announce series of strike dates (RTÉ)

Yesterday: ‘Now We Need Your Help’

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30 thoughts on “Escalating

  1. Eoin

    6,000 members of the psychiatric nurses union? That’s a lot.

    Especially when added to the 40,000 members of the INMO.

    The 12,13,14 February are going to be very quiet days in Irish hospitals if all 46,000 are on 24-hour strikes.

  2. :-Joe

    Just f…ing pay them what they deserve too..

    Ye bunch of incompetant, corrupt, miserly daft f…ers in government, mismanaging the economy as usual.

    :-J

    1. Cian

      Are you happy if VAT goes up .5% to pay all the Nurses?
      Are you happy if Income tax increases by 2% to pay all the other public sector workers who’ll threaten to strike?

      1. :-Joe

        Yes it would be wonderful…

        If every year the nurses and also the teachers were not having to strike to get fair pay…

        Trying to blame long-term badly mismanaged economic policy on nurses looking for a pay rise is idiotic.

        :-J

      2. Ron

        Why does VAT need to increase to pay for it Cian? Prudent financial management of our economy is what could pay for it. Eliminate the waste. The state takes more then enough to pay for it. It’s the ineptitude of our politicians and civil servants that is the root cause

        1. Cian

          Ron, that’s not relevant. It’s still going to cost 300m extra each year.
          If we had prudent financial management of our economy we could drop VAT or tax (or increase spending on housing or whatever)

          1. Ron

            I suggest that the Government temporarily reduce by 50% and redeploy 300 million from the money it spends on the Irish aid programme. We clearly cannot afford it at this present time so we need to streamline and redeploy monies to areas that require urgent funding to ensure the health of our citizens is protected. In 2017 the Government spent €743.42 million on Ireland’s aid programme. This is called Official Development Assistance (ODA) and represented 0.32% of Gross National Product (GNP) or 32 cents in every €100 that the country produces.

            Of the OECD donors, Ireland provides the 12th highest per cent of its GNP to ODA, coming in ahead of countries such as Australia, Canada and Japan.

          2. Rob_G

            Think of all the houses the govt could build for €300m.. and not a single €300m, but €300m that grows by a fixed % each year…

          3. Boules

            Maybe FG could stop giving tax breaks to banks and vulture funds for a start.
            Maybe collect a fair rate of tax from massive corporations.

            This government put way too much burden on the squeezed middle.

          4. Cian

            I agree – we need to broader the tax take, and collect a fair rate of tax from massive corporations.

            But that is a separate issue to just paying the nurses more money.

      3. Eoin

        “I am informed by Revenue that the estimated savings to the Exchequer that would arise as a result of decreasing the rate or ceiling for occupational pension schemes, RACs and PRSAs to 20% is outlined on page 11 of the Revenue Ready Reckoner, at .

        Based on these estimates, standardizing the relief at 20% and maintaining the current €115,000 ceiling would yield €319m.”

        Says the finance minister a couple of months back.

        Mightn’t be popular with Ireland’s ridiculous management fees, commissions and bonuses pension industry, but it would strike most people as fair.

        1. Cian

          This would be good. Personally I think all tax relief should be capped at the lower rate (20%).

          It would not be popular with anyone that is actually contributing to a pension – they may think it isn’t fair!

      4. Starina

        Yes, Cian. I am. I don’t mind paying high taxes as long as it goes towards useful things like, say, nurses’ pay instead of jobs for the boys and lunches with CEOs.

        1. Cian

          I would agree.
          But MaryLou’s ArmaLite;s link below shows that Irish nurses are paid considerably more than UK ones. So I’m not sure if this is ‘useful’.

          The problems in the HSE (and there are many) aren’t linked to nurses. More nurses won’t solve any of the crises we have. Better-paid nurses won’t solve anything.

          If I’m going to pay more tax I’d rather that the service was improved – not just paying more for the same stuff.

          1. Cian

            More nurses, or better paid nurses won’t solve any of the HSE problems.

            As I said below. One of the biggest problems in HSE is the lack of beds.
            Two approaches:
            1. We need somewhere for old people who are currently taking hospital beds: these are ones that can’t be cared in normal old-folks-homes, but who don’t need to be in hospital. This would free up existing beds for sick people.

            2. We need more acute beds (this will have a knock-on of needing more nurses and doctors to care for the additional patients). This would remove patents from trolleys, improve through-put in A&E, and allow more efficient use of theatres.

            This is an interesting read: http://www.eolasmagazine.ie/origins-of-the-trolley-crisis/

  3. Cian

    Oh, and all nurses automatically get their “increment” each year – which averages 4.2% over the first 9 years;

    So if you were on, say, step 6 last year you earned €36,383. This year you will get and extra €1,500!

    The are looking for an additional 12% to all the increments.

    1. realPolithicks

      Give it a rest ffs…even using your example this “person” will make less than 38k per year…if they’re living in Dublin they’ll have a hard time paying their rent.

      1. :-Joe

        Ye every hospital development plan should include subsidesed housing for staff within the shortest commute possible including apartment shares for double shift-ers etc.

        Basic common sense and the practice of implementing sensible ideas already proven effective elsewhere seems to elude the minds of Irish governments and successive economic policy makers.

        It would save a small fortune all over the system just by having all the theatres fully staffed and operating at full tilt, even if they were earning twice what the scraps they get now.

        :-J

        1. Cian

          “It would save a small fortune all over the system just by having all the theatres fully staffed and operating at full tilt, even if they were earning twice what the scraps they get now.”

          The bottleneck isn’t nurses, it isn’t theatres – it’s is beds. We need more beds. If there were more beds (and yes, we would need to increase the nursing staff to manage the new beds) we would be able to reduce the numbers on trollies, increate the numbers in theatre (who would have post-op beds to go to).

          If HSE has 300m to spend – everyone (except the nurses) would be better off if it were spent on more wards/beds.

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