Up to 20 staff at the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) are set to be made redundant after the organisation announced its intention to close its medical devices testing division.
Talks between management at the authority and Unite, the union representing the affected staff, are expected to take place next week.
The closure announcement came as staff in the section were about to embark on industrial action over the authority’s intention to make one clinician redundant.
The union had opposed the move, arguing that it was unprecedented in recent times for a public sector employer to use compulsory redundancy to cut numbers. It also contended the area of the organisation in question was already significantly understaffed as a result of staff numbers having been substantially reduced over time.
This, it said, was contributing to a backlog in existing work.
Unite says it was told of the decision to close the section late last Friday. Staff have been engaging in a work-to-rule since Tuesday in protest at the cuts originally proposed.
In a statement on Friday, the Department of Enterprise said that its Minister, Peter Burke, had received notification that the board of NSAI had decided, on July 30th, to begin an orderly exit from the provision of medical product certification services.
“The decision followed extensive consideration by the board of the financial viability of the service. The service has faced sustained challenges, including staff recruitment and retention, maintaining designation by the competent authority, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, productivity issues and market competition.
“The Minister appreciates that this decision will be disappointing for staff working in medical certification services … He trusts that [the] NSAI will make every effort to minimise the impact of this decision on its staff and customers.”
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Unite described the decision to inform staff of the decision to close the section just before they finished work in advance of a bank holiday weekend as cynical and malicious.
Regional officer Ed Thompson called on Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers and Burke, the two Ministers whose consent would be required for the redundancies to proceed, to intervene “as a matter of urgency, not only to maintain the integrity of the NSAI … but also to avoid undermining industrial relations in the wider public sector”.
The union said the disruption to certification which any closure would potentially cause poses “significant risks for regional manufacturers, investment, product launches and employment in a sector that has thrived on stability to date”.