Fórsa’s head of Health and Welfare Éamonn Donnelly has written to the union’s health branches about the issue of compensatory rest for grade VIIIs and above.

The issue was the subject of a recent memo from the HSE, which provides guidance to health employers on compliance with the Organisation of Working Time (OWT) Act, dealing with the provision of rest periods, and maximum weekly working hours, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fórsa raised concerns last year that the failure to make provision for compensatory rest for health managers who had worked 60 to 70 hour weeks over seven days through most of last year, risked a breach of state legislation on working time. Some units within the HSE have since taken steps to ensure the provision of adequate rest while others haven’t.

In the letter, Éamonn advises affected members to submit a claim for compensatory rest if they’ve had to “consistently breached the upper weekly ceiling of 48 hours weekly,” and make the claim for all hours worked above that ceiling.

He added: “Claims should be accepted by the employer in good faith as a reciprocation for the extraordinary commitment and goodwill shown by you in working such hours without question.”

Éamonn explained that the onus is on the employer to maintain records of attendance: “When claims are submitted, there is likely to be a liability on the employer to provide significant blocks of compensatory rest.

“Fórsa will be in discussion with the HSE on resource arrangements to ensure that claimants can actually avail of such blocks of rest,” he said.

He also advised that the 48 hour threshold does not represent an acceptance by Fórsa of the standard working week being anything greater than the contracted 37 hours: “This is strictly a once-off set of circumstances arising from a national health emergency,” he added.