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BILLY KELLEHER HAS called on Health Minister Leo Varadkar to step in over the registration fee row that could see nurses de-registered.
Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson said Varadkar “must ensure nurses will not be de-registered” because of the dispute that has arisen after the Nurses and Midwives Board of Ireland (NMBI) increased their retention fee from €100 in 2014 to €150 this year.
Earlier this week, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association advised its members to refuse to pay the increased rate.
At the time, a spokesperson for the NMBI said increasing the fee was “not ideal” but necessary as the Department of Health has told the group it needs to become self-funding.
He added that nurses and midwives who have not paid the fee by 2 Febrauary will receive a reminder notice. If they do not pay within 28 days, they may be removed from the register.
Kelleher said he was ”disappointed at the lack of engagement” Varadkar has had with the dispute. He said that while he understood the NMBI’s position a 50% increase in its retention fee was “excessive”.
“The NMBI regulates professional and safety standards in nursing and midwifery and its relationship with staff on the frontline is extremely important. I believe this dispute has the potential to significantly sour that relationship if it is allowed to drag on,” Kelleher stated, adding that Varadkar should meet will all concerned parties.
The last thing the health service needs is to start the year with a prolonged and bitter dispute with nurses that would threaten their ability to practice their profession.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said Varadkar asked the NMBI’s board before its last meeting “to find the best way to resolve this matter and avoid any implications for the health service or patient safety”.
They said the department “has responsibility for the oversight and governance of the NMBI board but has no role in the setting or approval of fees, so any resolution must come about through discussions between the NMBI and the staff associations”.
The spokesperson added that Varadkar is “monitoring the situation closely and has asked both sides to reach a satisfactory resolution as soon as possible”.
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We get a flat rate expense to cover the cost of our uniforms for work. Registration isn’t optional we can’t work without it. As for Union fees many feel it’s necessary to pay them as the environments we are working it are below standard and unsafe for practice and there are always ongoing issues with working conditions. For once we are standing up for our ourselves and not allowing our profession to be walked over if they want 150 then it’s time they start to give us something back in return. There is a pending shortage of nurses again and it’s about time the NMBI and HSE wake up and listen to the their staff on the ground.
From the revenue,
“These are expenses that are incurred in the performance of the duties of the employment and are directly related to the ‘nature of the employee’s employment’”, registration expenses fall into that category. Union fees are voluntary.
First sane words here This is the second increase in these fees The threat now is to remove All nurses and midwives from duty if we don’t pay Can you get your head around that because I can’t Who is going to run the High dependency unit theatre delivery units if we’re all prevented from working
Cheaper to give an agency to an insider than to create well-paying sustainable jobs within the civil service – hence the wide disparity in minimum wages across the Euro zone …
The real story in Nursing in Ireland is who are the agencies ? – Who owns them ? And what are their profit margins and what political history of the owners ?
This is just feathers in the air to control the narrative – i.e. to keep nurses complaining about a small issue as opposed to the bigger question !
Why has Liam Doran been silent on the privatisation of nursing and the drop in standards that seems to have accompanied it with the various exposes and court cases ?
It is what leaders don’t discuss that tell you whether they are genuine or not …
If I was a nurse I would be seeking to change the management of the Union – test to see if the Leadership truly believe in representing their workers or just themselves !
So the guy that’s ultimately responsible is shirking all responsibility.
He has no responsibility here Mick
Leo
From reading the article I understand that it his department that is withdrawing funding and creating the problem in the first place.
@Mick, NMBI is a self funding independent regulatory board.
@ Annette, The article states that the Dept has instructed that the NMBI must now become self-funding. From this I am led to believe that this has not been the case to this point. Is the article incorrect?
Another word for quango
Mick I imagine since this is newly formed from two previous bodies with the 2011 act it may have got some initial support.
It is a necessary independent body, not a quango and if the Minister could interfere here then it follows that it’s independence is compromised.
Similar with regulatory accountancy bodies where the fee is double this.
@Mick, it’s my understanding that NMBI has always been self funding.
The minister directly appoints people to the board.
It needs to be ‘Self-funding’????
Does that mean the expensive swanky office in Blackrock and the top of the range salaries and pensions for its staff?
You would have to question how they can justify a 50% increase when inflation is running at 1% per annum.
there you go sort it out yourself,,Leo can stand over himself gaining 1700 a year because of budge but the hard pressed worker can swing
@ David Higgz: Agreed although apparently the NMBI has been given additional statutory responsibilities this year, though I haven’t read anything about what these new tasks are.
@ Órla Ryan:
“Varadkar: Nurses must sort out registration fee dispute amongst themselves”
Surely the headline should say: “Varadkar: NMBI must sort out registration fee dispute themselves”
Leo only gets involved if there’s a handy photo op and if the subject has nothing to do with his dept.A more smug ar$ehole on planet Earth you’d be hard pressed to find. He’s definitely FG leadership material.
Registration & Union fees are another hidden TAX. Unfortunately you cannot work without them.
Nurses get a flat rate tax expense of 733 euro a year, so hardly another tax. Union fees are optional.
There’s also tax relief at the marginal rate for these fees.
With respect citizen smith
1. No public accounts since 2011
2. Write down on property in 2011
3. No acknowledgement from NMBI of state of nursing profession
4. Untenable relationship between nmbi and irish nurses, because if the nmbi actually stuck to their principles or code half the nurses cud be reprimanded. Resulting in, nurses are made traverse the line of safety, regulation, performance, to achieve results with an Existing failing establishment
So it’s easy for persons to reflect on revenue process
However for the nurses of Ireland this is a cut that runs a lot deeper than as many put it a” a few quid a week”
All true Sean, I don’t disagree, just pointing how wrong Martin is.
E150 is an exorbitant fee. Teachers only have to pay E60
Nurses have more responsibility
citizensmith
If nurses have so much responsibility, the govt should reward them by dropping the fee
The NMBI are not the government
But the NMBI are implementing govt policy – in other words, they are doing their dirty work for them
They are implementing the law, gotta love democracy
A democracy?
hahaha!
What else would you call it
We are ruled by Brussels, hadn’t you noticed?
So you don’t know what to call it then
If you are looking for a word then its “tyranny”
You think Ireland is a government in which all power belongs to one person : the rule or authority of a tyrant
Ever heard of Enda Kenny?
Yeah about 10,000 people voted for him in Mayo, then he was elected as Taoiseach by a majority of TD’s who were also elected in a similar way. What’s your point.
Four people make all the decisions in this country, Kenny, Noonan, Howlin and Moan Joan … IN SECRET, call that a “democracy”?
I don’t think 4 is a majority of TDs but my Maths was never that good maybe you are right.
I am right!
@Seanshocks
1. There’s a provision in both of the Nursing Acts states that the accounts should be published and made available at a cost after the audit certificate has been issued by the C&AG. After that certificate is issued, the Nursing Act also stipulates that a copy of those accounts should also be forwarded on to the Minister. Why are the last accounts that are published online for 2011? If you submit a written request to NMBI seeking a copy of those accounts in accordance with the Act, will they release the accounts? How much does a copy of their accounts cost? Charging members for access to accounts is hardly being open and transparent, and why didn’t any of the nursing unions pick up on this provision and call for amendments in the legislation when the new Act was being drafted?
2. As for the write down, they started to distinguish between their fixed assets and the land value in their 2011 accounts and there’s no explanation why they done this. Furthermore, the impairment relates in fact to the land value as distinct from the premises in Carrysfort Ave and again there’s no explanation offered for how they came up with this new valuation.
Hey big willy, how do 4 TDs pass legislation?
By using the party whip system.
In Sweden the fee is a one off 700kr (€70) that keeps you in the register for life
http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/ansokaomlegitimationochintyg/legitimation/utbildadisverige/sjukskoterskor
Meaning NMBI want Irish nurses to pay 64 times more than Swedish nurses (€60 v €4500 (€150 x30 yrs) ).
What do Irish nurses get extra? A couple of crappy 4 page glossy magazines/ yr
We don’t get the magazine anymore. We get it through email!!
yeah, I asked them to stop sending it to me too, but I didnt get the €20 reduction i asked for. Also they didnt take my other cost cutting advice onboard, such as moving out of Blackrock and relocating to Leitrim, thinning the heard etc.
Herd
Something never change
We now have Harney number 3 or Reilly number 2 running health
Or Haughey number 9
You suggest a better alternative so Galway
Someone who is actually interested in proper reform of the health system, instead of his own career would be good
And a name Dave?
Haughey was the last health minister to become Taoiseach
How about you James
Good man Dave, Im not the one criticising the present incumbent. So easy knock someone doing a hard job yet you can’t suggest one alternative.
So James, am I wrong for wanting a health minister who will properly reform the health system?
Never said that Dave
You knocked the present incumbent and can suggest no alternative. That was my point.
not much of a point though is it James.
The answer ,get in touch with our german advisors
Dont become a nurse kids. It is a truly shite job theses days
I think it’s time we started taxing the politicians
Leo proving he doesn’t have what it takes to even deal with a minor crisis in his own department. When trouble rears its head, he promptly runs away and says he isn’t getting involved with the very thing he is supposed to be the Minister of. Another Fine Gael coward in action.
I know this much i would not do a nurses job for love or money, if any nurses are reading this , i would say dont pay 50% More, go strike you will have all the support you need from grateful people like me who know what crappy money you get, for a hard job that you should get a lot more thanks for, ….
It nobody pays, Varadkar will find a solution, just like the water charges. So I suggest that all of the nurses and midwifes just pay the €100.00 and refuse to pay any more as there is no way the board will be allowed to strike them off fact…People power
Vad will hand it over to the revenue to collect!!!
No accounts published since 2011. The CEO topped up her salary with expenses of €9776 in 2013. Expensive PR firms on the books.
Can someone please explain why this board actually needs this much money to function?
Also, if they strike off nurses for not doing their job should they also allow for nurses to stop working, where dangerous understaffing/overcrowding exist.
Probably in part because they have spent so much money moving to and renovating their new offices in Carrysfort! Why they couldn’t have gotten offices in less expensive parts of the city or country is anyone’s guess.
Varadkar called the water protestors in Jobstown, socialists and thugs. So people who do not want to pay for something twice are socialists and thugs?
This clown must be got rid of
If the Journal and the rest of his fanboys had their way, Varadkar would be the next Taoiseach.
The massive elephant in the room is the EUR300 that the INMO union charges the 70,000 active registered nurses in Ireland every year.
What does the Union spend the money on? Let’s see their finances!
Even if only half pay their union fees that’s EUR 9 million per annum to Liam Doran and Co.
Might he disclose his salary and his top management team and consultants?
There is a lot more going on here than simply a 50€ per nurse there are principles, conditions , safety are just three aspects that the nmbi fail both the public and it nurses
As per nurses midwives act the board are to approach the oreachtais for any cost of implementing the act
So they either have and still have huge costs or they have not and are not willing for the costs to become apparent One might say if they are not happy to go to the oireachtas or won’t engage with the oireachtas or its nurses in relation to this fee hike and decline to make available accounts pertaining to the last two years
That’s there’s is a deficit in the integrity of the nmbi and a marquee statement in everything they stand for
Open up nmbi your public and your nurses are no longer falling for your ” must carry out duties”. the nurses and midwives act does not advocate deficits in integrity
I used to admire Leo but it’s clear now he’s just gutless. He tries to sidestep every issue by putting it on the backburner or ”sort it out amongst yourselves”, sure the health service probably won’t get any worse under him but it damn sure won’t get better because he’s too afraid to make any decisions lest they damage the popularity he needs when he wishes to become FG leader.
Vad needs to understand that laissez faire won’t work.
It didn’t work for Reilly and it won’t work for him.
He is supposed to be the Minister for Health.
It is his problem.
I’m not sure how this is different to teachers for example that have to pay hundreds in registering with the teaching council, paying union fees, etc..
Teachers pay €65 per year, nurses are now expected to pay €150
Surely we have to keep these people in the standard they got used to
Let’s see how Leo deals with the fact there will be no nurses left to run the hospitals etc when we have all been struck off! See how long people have to wait in a&e then!
Lets see if the advice from the two main nursing unions is any dissimilar to the advisory that they issued in May 2014 when after leading nurses royally up the garden path they then announced that the payment of the retention fee for 2014 is solely a matter between each nurse and NMBI. Once there’s notice issued that they’re planning to apply to the courts to erase names from the register, I reckon that this is going to be another non-issue as far as the two main nursing unions are concerned, until the end of 2014 where it’ll be like groundhog day.
Lets see if the advice from the two main nursing unions is any dissimilar to the advisory that they issued in May 2014 when after leading nurses royally up the garden path they then announced that the payment of the retention fee for 2014 is solely a matter between each nurse and NMBI. Once there’s notice issued that they’re planning to apply to the courts to erase names from the register, I reckon that this is going to be another non-issue as far as the two main nursing unions are concerned, until the end of 2015 where it’ll be like groundhog day.
When TTIP comes in later this year the HSE can privatise the hospitals out to U.S. Medical companies and they can outsource all their nurses from the Philippines?
@Michael
Nonsense. Such a move would breach the Haddington Road Agreement and, more importantly, cause a public outcry.
The investorstate dispute settlement (ISDS) in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) says…
“ISDS grants foreign corporations the right to go before private trade tribunals and directly
challenge government policies and actions that corporations allege reduce the value of their
investments. Even if a new policy applies equally to domestic and foreign investors, ISDS allows
foreign corporations to demand compensation for the absence of a ‘predictable regulatory
environment.’
In recent years, the use of ISDS to challenge a diverse array of government policies has
expanded dramatically. Inclusion of ISDS in free trade agreements and bilateral investment
treaties has allowed corporations to file over 500 cases against 95 governments. Many of these
cases directly attack public interest and environmental policies. For the following reasons, we
strongly urge you to exclude ISDS from TTIP:
ISDS forces governments to use taxpayer funds to compensate corporations for public
health, environmental, labor and other public interest policies and government actions:
ISDS has been used to attack clean energy, mining, land use, health, labor, and other public
interest policies. In fact, of the more than $14 billion in the 16 claims now pending under just
U.S. free trade agreements, all relate to environmental, energy, financial regulation, public
health, land use and transportation policies – not traditional trade issues.”
So companies can over rule domestic and governmental policies as well as unions.
I said this a long time ago before this started to happen in Spain with their hospitals and I can still see this happening here, our health system changing in a U.S. Health system as it has already started in the E.U.
Once the E.U. does anything then we have to follow them?
“ISDS undermines democratic decision-making: ISDS grants foreign corporations the right to
directly challenge government policies and actions in private tribunals, bypassing domestic
courts and creating a new legal system that is exclusively available to foreign investors and
multinational corporations. ISDS also offers corporations a venue through which to challenge
domestic court decisions, further undermining domestic decision-making. In short, ISDS is a
one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither
governments nor individuals are granted any comparable rights to hold corporations accountable.”
Something to think about as TTIP is dangerous and the Haddington Road Agreement would be easily gotten rid of when the unions face the ISDS AS THAT WOULD MEAN UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS CAN BE SUED FOR LOSSES.
Is there a public outcry over the ISDS or TTIP, No there is not…
I am more than sure it will be a year or two but it will happen after they decide on an universal health charge, it will happen little by little and that is how it will come in. I don’t want it to happen, just that I want people to be aware of it before it does happen.
@Michael
There is not a shred of evidence that Irish hospitals will be privatised. Furthermore, I doubt that it’s happening in Spain either.
This rant about TTIP and ISDS is as credible as saying that the US government flew those airliners by remote control into the Twin Towers. Come back to this discussion when you have hard evidence of what you allege.
Furthermore, the EU is not against the public; it’s pro-public, as the following article shows.
@Michael
What’s wrong with universal health insurance? It’s OK in the Netherlands. People who can drive and need cars to get around have to pay insurance. The same logic can be applied to one’s health. After all, a car engine serves as an analogy for the human heart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership
Look at the references section on that.
Health insurance in the Netherlands is 800 euro per year and they were talking about 2000 here? That is crazy and many can’t afford it but the Netherlands model is not a good one and yet Cuba has the best in the world and look at them?
@Michael
The State will fund health insurance for those who can’t afford to pay it. Seems quite simple to me.
http://iberosphere.com/2013/06/spain-news-private-sector-moves-into-spains-public-hospitals/8701
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/us-spain-austerity-health-idUSBRE9460PW20130507
“There is not a shred of evidence that Irish hospitals will be privatised. Furthermore, I doubt that it’s happening in Spain either. ” Above articles say different and TTIP will I fear prove me right.
Ireland in my belief will do what the E.U. tells it as the E.U. organises who the Eurozone countries trade with without these countries present at these negotiations and TTIP works on this principal as well. So Ireland does what Ireland is told to do. Ireland is not involved with the negotiations over TTIP but it will be signed on our behalf because we are part of the E.U. and YET HAVE TO FOLLOW IT BUT NEVER AGREED TO IT by ourselves, we let Brussels and Berlin do that for us. It is just crazy.
@Michael
From the Reuters article:
“During Spain’s property boom, from 2004 to 2011, the Madrid government built 11 new hospitals. That led to over supply that became increasingly unaffordable after the boom turned to bust in 2008, healthcare experts say.”
That is the mess that the Socialist Party created when it was in government. The Popular Party has to pick up the pieces.
By the way, the Irish public loves nurses so much that privatisation of public hospitals in Ireland will not happen. Nurses are the public sector workers who receive the most public sympathy – and rightly so. The current INMO general secretary – a man in a suit – is not serving them well. He should make way from a woman who has much experience of being a nurse, given that nursing is still a mostly female profession.
The EU wants the EU-US trade deal to enshrine democratic prerogatives. There is no secret about it.
Read…
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/TTIP_Investment_Letter_Final.pdf?docID=14701
As these are references to TTIP.
Merkel does what Obama tell her and she tells the rest of the E.U. what to do.
E.U. Countries do what they are told from Brussels and they only get the blame when they get it wrong, you find that it is the troika and the IMF that pulls strings in the E.U.
Micks
Did Annette not get back to answer,mocks point
oh yeah, i feel water charges should be sorted out by ministers amongst themselves and paid too..!!
Is it be legal for the INMO to have a ballot for industrial action that involves a boycott of the increase in the registration fee?
Isn’t that fantastic! As minister of health a quango that he appoints cronies to is attempting to extorte money from the staff members that he has responsibility for and has further threatened to sack them if they don’t pay up and he says ‘IT’S NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!….. WTF???
Ah Yes the Minister of Health who comments on everything except the dysfunctional Health Service for which he holds responsibility for as minister for Health..he is too busy promoting Leo in his campaign for the FG leadership http://jrnl.ie/1861874
Where’s the nmbis invitation to a cross section of nurses at the coal face
To facilitate this dispute
They need to look their nurses in the eye not down their nose
Regulators are not meant to be oppressive
The nmbi are oppressive by virtue of their approach toward 2015 ARF
With their nurses
have your say