Varadkar and Howlin clash over health funding

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin have again clashed at Cabinet over funding for the health service.

Sources said that while Mr Varadkar and Mr Howlin did not have a row, there was a “big divergence of views” at Tuesday’s meeting on the looming strike by nurses and the issue of consultants’ pay.

Some of those present believed Mr Varadkar was pushing to reopen the Lansdowne Road public-sector pay agreement to secure pay rises for doctors and nurses.

However, others said Mr Varadkar was pressing for a softer approach towards health-sector workers while sticking to the current pay deal.

It is understood the Department of Health maintains that health staff, particularly doctors and nurses, must be supported because of the high numbers choosing to work abroad.

Hard line

Mr Howlin is said to have advocated taking a hard line with both nurses and consultants and believed the Government should “take them on”.

The Department of Public Expenditure is understood to fear additional concessions to nursing unions could lead to the unravelling of the Lansdowne Road Agreement but sources in the Department of Health said they did not believe this to be the case.

Mr Varadkar has already raised the prospect of a new consultants’ contract being negotiated by the next government.

In a statement last night, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said it recently repeated its concerns to Mr Varadkar that "contractual arrangements for consultants were exacerbating the difficulties in retaining and recruiting consultants ".

It called on the Coalition to "enter into discussions on a new consultants' contract that will include discussions on the issues arising from the Health Service Executive and Government failing to honour the terms of the existing contract."

The Irish Times reported this week that hospital consultants could be in line to receive millions of euro in compensation if findings of two cases successfully brought by doctors to the Employment Appeals Tribunal set a precedent.

The case was taken over the HSE’s failure to pay higher salaries agreed more than seven years ago to encourage doctors to treat more public patients.

Mr Howlin and Mr Varadkar also clashed last month over the HSE’s service plan for 2016, with Mr Howlin criticising its underlying figures.

Planned strike action

Mr Varadkar yesterday said the planned strike action by nurses in hospital emergency departments next week would compromise patient safety and not resolve overcrowding.

He urged members of the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation not to go ahead with planned stoppages “in order to allow time to pause for reflection”.

Nurses are to stage rolling two-hour work stoppages in seven hospital emergency departments on Thursday next week.

One source said that, at Cabinet, Mr Varadkar had made an attempt to make a special case for pay increases for nurses and doctors.

The source said Mr Howlin “had to remind him that there are also paramedics and porters and so on who are essential to the running of the health service too”.