Michelle O’Neill hopeful of resolution to nurses’ pay dispute within days

The First Minister has said she hopes a dispute over nurses’ pay can be resolved within days.

Michelle O’Neill made the prediction as she was asked to provide clarity on the situation after differing messages emerged after Thursday’s Executive meeting at Stormont Castle.

During the meeting ministers agreed to allocate £150 million to departments facing shortfalls on public sector pay demands.

The largest allocation was £100 million to Health Minister Mike Nesbitt who had asked for £200 million to enable him to deliver a recommended raise for healthcare workers.

Nurses have been warning of imminent strike action if a 3.6% increase recommended by the independent Pay Review Body was not met.

On Thursday, Ms O’Neill said the Executive had agreed to provide an additional £100 million and Mr Nesbitt had “found” the other £100 million in his own existing departmental budget.

However, he later stressed that the additional £100 million had not yet been identified in his department and his officials were still exploring “every angle” to meet the shortfall.

The Health Minister cautioned that negotiations with healthcare unions and professional bodies were at a “sensitive stage” with work continuing for a “workable solution”.

On Friday, Ms O’Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly attended a meeting of the North South Ministerial Council in Dublin.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, it was put to the ministers that the differing comments from the Executive had led to confusion.

“I mean, I’m very certain in terms of the pathway that we have in terms of trying to get a resolution,” replied Ms O’Neill.

“I think that’s the will of the entire Executive, that we get a resolution to nurses’ pay, so I think we just need to create the space over the next couple of days to allow those conversations to continue and that we get that positive outcome, because ultimately, that’s where we want to be.

“I think it was consistent in terms of the Executive yesterday that we have to end this cycle, break this cycle of nurses being left to the end of the line in terms of getting their pay settlement.

“So there’s a commitment for pay parity (with pay offers elsewhere in UK), there’s a commitment that that will not happen again in terms of the waiting. And I’m hopeful over the next couple of days we can get a resolution.”

The devolved administration adopted the same 50% allocation approach with other ministers who had asked for additional money to deliver pay awards.

Education Minister Paul Givan is receiving £37 million, which is half of what he had asked for.

Justice Minister Naomi Long and Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins will get £6.7 million each, which is also 50% of what they had requested to fund pay awards for police and prison officers and Translink transport workers respectively.

Ms Little-Pengelly acknowledged it was important that ministers “convey exactly what happened and what was decided” at meetings, but she said she was “confident” Mr Nesbitt would be able to source the further £100 million he needed.

“It is a complex picture, I did reflect that yesterday,” she said.

“The ministers right across all the departments are in a very difficult financial situation, there’s a lot of pressures on, we recognise that. We welcome the fact that we got some additional money, and that has really helped and supported but it didn’t go far enough in terms of meeting what is a very significant pay pressure across a number of departments, particularly with arms-length bodies or those pay bodies.”

She added that ministers would be facing “hard decisions” as they attempted to find extra resources from their own budgets.

“There will be hard decisions that will have to be made about either slowing down or stopping certain activity within those departments,” she said.

“But we do believe they are in a much better position now, with having that additional 50% coming from the Executive and only having to find the 50% within their budget than where they were several weeks ago, with having to try to find that 100%.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said Mr Nesbitt now had a “job to do”.

“We’ve been able to find £100 million for him,” she said.

“That brings him 50% of the way. Now he has a job to do. It’s not easy, but we believe and we have reason to be confident that he will be able to do that. And we wish him well with the negotiations with the unions, but that should provide some reassurance to those unions that some work has been done, more yet to be done.

“But we are optimistic that we will find a way through this in terms of a reasonable settlement.”