NATIONAL POLITICIANS DON’T HAVE TO STRIKE TO GET PAY RISES – HAGAN

The Government could not in good conscience respond to the cessation of industrial action by Irish nurses and midwives without meeting their justified pay demands, local health issues campaigner Tommy Hagan told The Northern Standard this week.

Mr Hagan welcomed the fact that a Labour Court recommendation had resulted in a suspension of the industrial action undertaken by the Irish Nurse and Midwives Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association, but he stressed that the Government had now to deliver with significant improvement in pay and conditions. “Our national politicians, unlike the nurses, do not have to take to the picket line in order to win a pay increase – as they demonstrated recently, they merely have to vote it through themselves,”

Mr Hagan stated. “They are insulated…