Two public sector healthcare unions to take industrial action in protest against HSE
Two of the country’s largest public sector healthcare unions have served notice of their intention to take industrial action in protest at the HSE’s controversial ‘pay and numbers’ strategy.
Forsa and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) have jointly served three weeks’ notice to the HSE of action which will commence with members engaging in work-to-rule and “other non-cooperation actions” from Monday, March 31.
Work-to-rule generally entails staff refusing to do overtime or any other out-of-hours duties requested by management and sticking rigidly to rostered hours. The move would represent the first gambit in a “phased action” which could escalate to work stoppages, the unions said.
Unfilled HSE roles
The notice of action, which was expected, serves as a significant escalation in a long-running dispute over the strategy, which has allegedly seen thousands of unfilled roles within the HSE suppressed or rendered obsolete amid ongoing budgetary concerns within the health service.
Members of the two unions in both the HSE and Section 38 voluntary hospitals have been instructed to participate in the action when it commences.
A spokesperson for the HSE said that the prospective industrial action is “regrettable” given its workforce continues to grow in a significant way across 2025, and said it would “seek in every way possible to have this action avoided”.
They added that it is the HSE’s view that any industrial action would constitute “a breach" of the public service agreement by the unions involved.
The instruction from the unions follows the results of a joint project aimed at establishing roles which had been suppressed across the health regions, information which the unions said the HSE had “refused to provide”.
The unions have argued that, in suppressing needed employment opportunities within the health service in order to adhere to budget cuts, the health service is inflicting an “ongoing impact on staff and patient safety”.
General secretary of the INMO Phil Ni Sheaghdha said that “nurses and midwives on the frontline are crying out for support, and they feel ignored”.
“Instead of additional staff, they are being faced with recruitment embargoes and needless administrative obstacles. Senior decision-makers in the HSE are clearly desensitised to the risks associated with continuing to leave posts vacant,” Ms Ni Sheaghdha said.
She was echoed by Forsa’s head of health and welfare Ashley Connolly, who said the health service requires a “more robust approach”.
The HSE’s pay and numbers strategy was first implemented last summer as a follow-on from a recruitment embargo applied across the health service by HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster in October 2023.
That move had resulted from the Government’s 2024 budget which saw a perceived shortfall of €1.3bn applied to the Department of Health.
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