Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Since I tabled this matter last week there has been a considerable change in terms of the Labour Court outcome to the case in question. Prior to that, the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association hoped for a more positive outcome in terms of their core demand to reduce the working week from 39 hours to 35 hours. The INO and the PNA will get together to try to formulate a strategic approach to getting their just entitlements and rights within the public service.

From working closely with local authorities and other State agencies, the Minister of State knows that only one arm of the public service works a 39-hour week, namely, nurses. This is a discriminatory practice and it would be wrong to revert the matter to be dealt with by benchmarking. The Labour Court was in a position to deal with it, but did not do so. For the Health Service Executive to kick the matter back to touch is the wrong way to go about this business. In the early 1990s, benchmarking did not work in respect of this issue, anomalies in pay conditions for nursing staff or anomalies in working hours. I ask the Minister of State to have a serious consultation with the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, on this matter because the anger within the two organisations is growing. That anger is justified because of the way they have been treated, but it can be dealt with if we intervene at this stage. If we kick it to touch and leave benchmarking to deal with the issue, it will not be dealt with. We procrastinated before and that will happen again.

The Minister of State knows from his constituency that most nurses and nursing staff are female and work in arduous conditions with long and anti-social hours which put them under great stress. There are also males in the sector but the majority are female and it is discriminatory and sexist. The Government should not take its eye off the ball because their anger is building. The decision was made last Friday and now it is Wednesday. There is a meeting next week and I advise the Government to heed the demands of the Psychiatric Nurses Association and the Irish Nurses Organisation.