Nurses and midwives to protest at hospitals nationwide over pay

First to today's protest, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization will hold lunchtime ones at nine hospitals across the country. Union members are already engaged in a work-to-rule. The protests are taking place ahead of public health service work stoppages, the first of which will take place on Wednesday next, October the 14th. INO members say they're protesting over cost of living measures and the impact it's having on staffing and work locations. Phil Ni Hey is with us. She's General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization. Phil Ni Hey, good morning.

Good morning.

What will nurses and midwives not be doing today?

Well, we're protesting at lunchtime, as you just said there, in nine hospitals throughout the country in different regions, and that is really to demonstrate that the members that we represent, along with our colleagues in the public service, do not see anything, um, this week that has changed their mind in respect to the approach they're taking.

We, we, we'll get to that in just a moment. Can you just tell us what they're not going to be doing today first?

Well, they're on a work-to-rule continuously since the 30th, so that continues. That isn't changing today. What's happening today is there is a public-facing demonstration in nine hospitals, which will take place at lunchtime, and where our members will, in their lunch breaks, come and demonstrate at the gates of the em- employments that they're working in.

And what impact is the work-to-rule having on patients?

Well, at the moment, uh, the employer is clearly struggling because there are so many vacant posts. One of the areas that we have asked our members not to engage in is taking up work of posts that haven't been filled. And the majority of the requests we have from the employer to date is that we would, uh, give additional hours, and that people would be asked to work and fill vacant posts that haven't been filled. So we know that there's been a huge embargo in the health service of 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 what-

And that means that 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.

So how will patients be affected next Wednesday?

Well, there will be services that will close, and there will be services that will have to be postponed.

Like, like what?

There will be sc- Like, particularly outpatient services, particularly day services, and the Health Service Executive are advising, um, we understand, and they have committed to advising well in advance the public of that. GPs will have to be informed and that those announcements will be made today.

Government. Government ministers say they're ready to talk to unions. They say they've set aside one point two billion euro next year for a public pay deal. Here's the Taoiseach on News Talk yesterday.

There's negotiations to be had, first of all. You don't have everything resolved befo- prior to negotiations. So you have a combination of