Cowen demands immediate end to electricians' dispute
A row between the Health Service Executive and electricians must be resolved immediately so patients are not further inconvenienced, Tánaiste Brian Cowen today told the Dáil.
The Minister for Finance said the cancellation of ten operations at Kerry General Hospital was a disproportionate response to the dispute and the public deserved better.
Staff at the hospital cancelled the operation because the HSE claimed two electricians had refused to provide emergency cover,
Mr Cowen said: “The public will be askance at the fact that who puts a light bulb in a light fitting requires the sort of action that has been taken with the discommoding of patients and operations in hospitals in the south and south-east.
“Given that we’re setting up a health forum and getting people to work together and to deal with issues about performance of the health service, the idea that we would be in a situation today arising out of such an issue marks in my mind a failure of unions and management to resolve matters in a sensible way.
“It is an indication to me of how steep the incline seems to be to bring reform into the health services when we see this sort of disproportionate consequence arising out of what seems to be an issue that should be resolved in a common sense manner.”
He said there had been five attempts to resolve the issues in an industrial relations context since last July.
The acute hospitals affected by this dispute are spread across the south and south east of the country in Kerry, Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny.
The electricians’ union, the TEEU, insists that all hospitals involved in the dispute are being provided with emergency cover and it says this is being strictly enforced by union officials as part of the official dispute.
The TEEU is appealing to the HSE to agree to binding arbitration by an agreed third party and says such a basis could help find a resolution to the dispute.
The Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission have both intervened in the row already.
Mr Cowen added: “I think there is a need for people to resume normal activities and to allow the industrial machinery to be utilised to avoid a situation were patients or operations are put at risk.
“There are enough issues and problems in the health service without exacerbating things in this way.
“I would ask everybody to take on their responsibilities and deal with it in a way that the public are entitled to expect.”
Raising the issue during the Order of Business, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said a code of practice was adopted in 1992 to govern industrial disputes involving essential services.
He asked if this could be enshrined in legislation to prevent industrial action affecting the health service.
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