Recruitment embargo could lead to dispute, Fórsa warns

Public service trade union Fórsa has warned the health service recruitment embargo is impacting on the system and could lead to a new industrial dispute this winter.

Union representatives outlined the situation to the Oireachtas Health Committee and said there is "the likelihood of a national industrial dispute during the winter surge".

In Fórsa's opening statement, Ashley Connolly, head of the union's health and welfare division, said a survey of union members in August said health service personnel believe the system has been "negatively impacted by the HSE recruitment embargo".

Ms Connolly said the "veiled insinuation that public healthcare workers are not being productive enough must be called out for what it is - nothing more than a neo-liberal trick to provide cover for privatisation of the public healthcare system by stealth".

She said last year almost €80m was spent on health-related private consultancy companies, a figure she said could instead be used to fund 1,865 therapy positions, 2,354 medical secretary posts, or 1,334 psychology roles.

"Imagine what difference that level of staffing would make to people when accessing services.

"When you consider that just last week we learned from the Sunday Independent report that half of the people involved in the productivity and savings taskforce itself are from these for-profit private consultancy firms, you have to wonder whose interests are being served," she said.

Ms Connolly also said in her opening statement to the committee that in her view the HSE has "blatantly refused to listen to the voices of their own staff, choosing instead to work with outside agencies," a situation she said is "a recipe for disaster".

She added: "One can only conclude that [HSE chief executive] Bernard Gloster has no intention of resolving this dispute and is prepared to gamble the health service during the winter months rather than engage with staff on an issue of fundamental dispute."

Sinn Féin's health spokesperson David Cullinane asked Ms Connolly why "the minister [Stephen Donnelly] is on the one hand telling us we've never had it so good and that on the other hand" unions are saying posts are being "suppressed".

Deputy Cullinane added that "my understanding" is that a number of vacant posts were removed from the HSE internal system on 31 December last year, asking if they have been "suppressed, vanished, gone".

In response, Ms Connolly said "100% there were vacant posts in the system [on that date], they were decommissioned ... they moved them into another category so they have disappeared, they are no longer counted".

Ms Connolly was later asked by Fianna Fáil TD John Lahart if she has "evidence" of this claim.

Deputy Lahart said: "You've heard reports? This is the Oireachtas Health Committee, I'd be really concerned by that, do you have evidence of that?"

Ms Connolly responded by saying she and her colleagues have raised the matter with the HSE and are "awaiting a formal response", but added that "our members work in these areas" and are aware of the situation occurring.

Deputy Lahart continued to ask "vacancies are visible, is that what you're saying", before Ms Connolly responded "they've eliminated posts, they don't go back into the system".

After Ms Connolly said Fórsa has sent the HSE a Freedom of Information request to find out the exact number of positions which may be involved and that "just yesterday" it received a response saying "the data is not available", Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall responded that the situation is "smoke and mirrors".

"I don't believe this thing of the data not being available. It's a matter of somebody having the time and assembling all of that.

"So the data is there, it's just they've come up with a response to you that is entirely unsatisfactory. The fact that a union has to go to the bother of an FOI ... it would seem that communication is very poor," said Ms Shortall.

Asked by People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Gino Kenny "how likely" a strike is due to the staffing concerns, Ms Connolly said members were balloted on 14 October and a response will be known by 25 November - potentially at the same time as the General Election.

Ms Connolly said she is aware that Fórsa's sister union has also balloted members.

"I can tell you the anger from my members is palpable. They believe they are being shut down and ignored," she said.

Asked by Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan for her view of the HSE's description of the situation as a "pay and numbers strategy" rather than an embargo, Fórsa's national secretary for health, pharmacy and statutory regulation Linda Kelly said "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

Ms Kelly said there is "a lack of transparency and any real conversation" on the issue, saying whatever terminology is used "we're talking about vacancies" and positions being "curtailed".

Some "30% of all psychology posts are vacant, that should be alarming," she added.

The Fórsa official said: "The spin game in the media is immature" and that whether it is "an embargo or a pay and numbers strategy" the bottom line is "there is no dispute this person was there and now they've retired".

She later said that she believes different sections of the health service believe when they are requesting a position is filled they are competing with other areas of the same system, saying "it's become The Hunger Games, for staff".