Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This issue has been brought up on the floor of the Dáil possibly every week in recent weeks. That is reflective of how unjustifiable Members feel it is that these workers are not getting the chance and the recognition to join the union of their choice. The PNA branch went on strike yesterday, which was the sixth strike it has had in recent months and it had an action day on 27 March outside the Dáil. It has full support right across the board from other trade unionists to the wider public. Prior to this strike, the HSE ignored the clear indication from the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in the Dáil, that he wanted this issue dealt with by negotiation rather than by confrontation. A number of Deputies, namely, Deputies Ó Caoláin, Barry, Broughan, Pringle, Gallagher and myself, wrote a cross-party letter to the Minister looking for a meeting to try to tease this out with him. We have not had that meeting yet and I have been asking the Minister over the last week and a half to have that meeting to try to move it on in order to have some sort of resolution to this. The HSE has no right, legally or otherwise, to not recognise this union. It is not an inter-union dispute. The NASRA branch of the PNA is not having a dispute with any other union but 500 members were out on strike yesterday. That is more than what the Service, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, SIPTU, or Fórsa, the other two unions, have in their membership. This is a basic right for the workers to be represented by a union of their choice. We need that to be recognised. I would urge the Minister to do what he did in the background with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, and the PNA and instruct the HSE. The HSE has been invited by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, three times to have discussions and it has refused to do so. It has refused to speak to the workers on the dispute as well.

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