asked the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to a proposal by the Manager of Cork Health Authority to the Authority recommending an increase of £700 per annum to each of three surgeons and an increase of £500 per annum to a part-time county physician retrospective to 1st October 1963; if he is aware that the annual salaries of the three surgeons are £2,320, £1,700 and £2,650 respectively and that the part-time physician receives £1,350 per annum; if, as all the present salaries exceed the £1,200 limit, he proposes to approve of these increases; if he will state the panel from which the arbitrators concerned in this matter were drawn; and who made the offer which has been accepted as stated in the manager's recommendation.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cork Health Authority Medical Staff.
26.
The answer to the first two parts of the question is "yes".
My approval has not been sought, as yet, for revision of the salaries of whole-time surgeons and of the part-time physicians employed by the Cork Health Authority.
The Arbitration Board under the Conciliation and Arbitration scheme for Local Authority Officers introduced in 1963 consists of a chairman, appointed by agreement between the County and City Managers' Association and the Staff Panel, with two members representing the Managers and two members representing the Staff Associations. The present offer was made, at conciliation level under the scheme, by the County and City Managers' Association and was accepted by the Staff Side. It was based on a recent arbitration award to wholetime county physicians and county surgeons which has been implemented already, with my approval, by the Cork Health Authority as respects the two whole-time county surgeons.
The revisions currently proposed are amongst the last of a long series of claims which have been under investigation since 1963. The limitations sought to be imposed on current wage claims do not apply to these long deferred revisions.