Nurses at a major Dublin hospital have served notice of industrial action due to unsafe conditions in the emergency department.

Nurses at Beaumont hospital will start their action with work to rule on June 10, when INMO nurses will refuse to carry out all non-essential and administrative duties. The INMO warns in a statement that “the action will escalate to work stoppages if the situation does not improve”

The union stressed that essential care for patients will still be carried out.

The INMO say management the hospital have failed to honour agreements made at the Labour Relations Commission in January of this year – when the INMO agreed to defer industrial action. The union says the department is “constantly left short staffed” and “overcrowding levels remain dangerously high due to insufficient bed capacity in the hospital”.

Lorraine Monaghan, INMO Industrial Relations Officer said:

“Management have had four months to implement measures agreed at the LRC to bring about desperately needed change, however, they have failed to do so and they have compounded the problem further by closing 33 beds. Our members, on behalf of the patients they look after, will no longer tolerate this situation or accept empty promises.”