asked the Minister for Health if the psychiatric nurses who were on strike recently are considered to have broken their contracts with the health boards.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Psychiatric Nurses Strike.
20.
Psychiatric nurses who recently went on strike are considered to have broken their contracts with the health boards.
In so far as pension rights are concerned, a pensionable officer of a health board is not entitled to reckon for pensionable service any period prior to a date on which he absents himself without authority from his place of employment or deliberately refrains from performing his duties. There is provision for an appeal to the appropriate Minister, in this case the Minister for Local Government, against the forfeiture of pensionable service in such circumstances.
Is it correct that these nurses are now deemed to have no pension rights except from the date on which they returned to work after the strike?
They have the right to appeal to the Minister for Local Government and it is his function to determine whether they can be allowed the continuation of the rights in spite of the fact that they took part in an industrial dispute.
Will the Minister advise his colleague that this will be purely a matter of form and that these rights will be restored to them?
I cannot say what has happened in the past but I am sure the Minister for Local Government will take a correct attitude in regard to this matter.
Is it not a fact that on previous occasions when officers forfeited pension rights for this reason immediate action was taken on the settlement to reinstate those pension rights? Surely the Minister concerned should take necessary action in the interests of good labour relations?
I do not suppose the Minister for Local Government would want to break any precedent which has already been created.
Would the Minister ask his colleague to take the necessary steps so that this will not be the cause of a further dispute?
I shall ask him to look at it very rapidly.
Could the Minister for Local Government not now show his good will towards them by reinstating their rights without their having to go through the form of appeal?
I think they have to go through the form of appealing. The organisation representing them can make that appeal very easily.
In the past it was done without their having to go through a form of appeal.
That will probably be done on this occasion then.