Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I thank the Members who contributed to this debate. It was certainly very wide-ranging and went way beyond the issue of the dispute between the health service and the PNA and INO. Some nurses are represented by SIPTU and, as such, have signed on for the 10% pay increase through the social partnership agreement. They have put their faith in the benchmarking process. We went to extraordinary lengths to put in place what is generally regarded as a progressive and modern industrial relations machinery, comprising the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court. The latter has adjudicated on the eight claims and has made recommendations in respect of some of them.

In the time at my disposal, I cannot deal with all the issues Members have raised, but I will respond to some of them. The current pay claim represents a 32% pay increase for nurses, comprising 10% for the national agreement, 10.6% to deal with the anomaly and 11.4% to deal with the reduction in working hours. Members asked what the problem is in reducing hours and claimed it is not a question of pay. That is not the case. It is a question of 30 additional days off for nurses, representing 7.7 million days of nursing time lost. It is a question of a pay increase of 11.6%.

I have put the Government's position on record. If it is the case that we can reduce working hours, as some nurses' representatives have suggested, and that this can be done on a cost neutral basis through innovative change in rostering and work practices, I will be all for it. We made that position clear through the National Implementation Body. If it is the case that the same number of nurses, through changed rostering and work practices, can do in 35 hours what they currently do in 39 hours, there will not be an issue. However, I have not been shown how that can happen. Until that exercise is undertaken, we cannot begin the process of implementing a reduction in working time. I cannot say we can begin to reduce working hours from 1 January 2008 without an additional cost in terms of nurses' pay.

I said in my opening comments that the average pay for nurses in 2005 was €56,000, or some €25,000 more than the average industrial wage of €31,360. Most people accept this is reasonable and fair when compared with the salaries of many other public sector workers. I am a strong fan of paying people well and reducing the burden of tax on workers, including nurses, thus providing higher take home pay. However, I cannot accept Deputy McManus's suggestion that we could grant the Dublin weighting allowance to nurses without this having a spin-off effect for all public servants in the Dublin area, at a cost of €252 million. One cannot say it is more expensive for nurses to live in Dublin but not for gardaí, civil servants, teachers or prisoner officers. That is not acceptable.

The 10% pay increase is available over a 27 month period to all workers who sign up to the social partnership agreement. Last December, 3% of this increase was paid, and 2% falls due on 1 June. SIPTU has agreed to this and those nurses who belong to that union will receive the increase. The anomaly affects some 50 nurses. In 2003, a commitment was given to provide 50 promotional posts to deal with those nurses in that reporting situation. This was rejected by the INO and the PNA. It remains our position to seek to resolve that anomaly through benchmarking. However, the nurses' claim is that everybody should receive the 10.6% increase, not just those in that reporting situation.

Deputy Twomey asked me about trust. Almost 300,000 public servants have placed their trust in the benchmarking process. That process is concerned with benchmarking public sector pay against private sector norms. Deputy Twomey asked why directors of nursing receive more than staff nurses. The former have huge responsibilities. The director of nursing in the Mater Hospital, for example, is responsible for ensuring, through rostering and so on, that 1,000 nurses are available where and when they are required. I presume this is the reason the benchmarking exercise gave directors of nursing more than staff nurses. Such differentials arise in many other areas of the public sector. This was a matter not for me but for the benchmarking process.

I hope this issue will be resolved through dialogue and discussion. Our door remains open. Last weekend, the national implementation body met for several hours on Saturday and Sunday. Despite this effort and that of recent weeks, however, it was not possible to resolve the issues. The forum to which Deputies referred is not concerned with pay. It was suggested by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I was a strong fan of its establishment in view of the need to change the role of the different players in the health system. In particular, we must ensure people work together in a different way. The forum seeks to find innovative ways for health care professionals to work together at both community and hospital level. In particular, it is about empowering nurses to do more. I am an advocate for such change; it is the reason I provided for nurse prescribing.

We have 13 nursing schools, graduate entry to nursing and eight times more applications than places. In the last decade, nursing in Ireland has gone through a revolution. I want to see nurses empowered in the health care system. However, we cannot simply sign on for reduced hours unless we know the financial implications. We cannot agree to such a reduction if it means more nurses to do the same amount of work. If it can be done without additional costs, as we are told it can, we must be shown how that is so. That exercise has not been completed, however, and nobody has shown me how we can achieve a 35-hour week for nurses on a cost neutral basis. If we could be convinced on this point, there would be no difficulty between both sides.

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