This article is from page 15 of the 2007-12-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
INDUSTRIAL action among the county’s emergency and medical staff has been averted just one week before Christmas.
On Tuesday morning nurses at Ennis General Hospital suspended a planned work to rule less than 12 hours before it was set to start.
Had the action gone ahead the hos- pital would have been without phone cover for eight hours every night, with nurses concentrating solely on patient care.
Following proposals put to the INO by management it was agreed that an additional 63 nursing hours would be provided to the medical wards to maintain safe staffing levels on night Clas
‘An understanding has been reached locally that the appointment of an ad-
ditional nurse at the Emergency De- partment can only be resolved by the HSEEA. The INO will be pursuing this matter further at this level,’ an INO spokesperson said.
An all-out strike by Ennis fire fight- ers was averted at the Ilth hour on Tuesday after agreement was reached between their union representatives and Clare County Council.
Fire-fighters at the county’s largest station had planned to strike at mid- night on Tuesday amid claims that the council breached agreements and refused to agree to the appointment of an arbitrator to resolve long stand- ing issues including staffing levels at the Ennis station.
Fire fighting crews from the Army Corps of Engineers based at the Cur- ragh had been on standby in Limer- ick in case of strike action.
Following discussions between
SIPTU and Clare County Council on Tuesday afternoon, a general meet- ing of fire-fighters took place in En- nis later that night when staff agreed to call off their planned strike.
SIPTU said that the issue of man- ning levels at the station had been addressed by the council and that “an additional resource will be made available from an outlying station.”
Union Branch Organiser ‘Tony Kenny said that both sides agreed to engage the services of a Rights Com- missioner to resolve a dispute over a member of staff who was relieved of duty because he hadn’t passed his truck-driving test.
‘Both sides have also agreed to en- gage the services of advisory service of the LRC to look at industrial rela- tions practices, policies and proce- dures within the fire service in En- nis,’ Mr Kenny added.