A STRIKE would have cost the Irish Nurses' Organisation more than £1.8 million a week if members were paid £80 strike pay weekly, the union's annual delegate conference heard yesterday.
However, the low level of the union's reserves £30,000 - meant that the fund would have lasted only one week and striking nurses would have been paid less than £1.30 each.
Delegates voted yesterday to allocate just over £200,000 each year to build up a strike fund to pay for any future industrial action.
At the time of the threatened industrial action in February the union had said that it would not be able to provide strike pay since it had only £30,000 in reserve.
The situation was described as "deplorable" by Ms Kay Doyle, a delegate from Wexford. "It was a holy show that we did not have a strike fund", she told the conference, supporting a motion that the union's annual membership fee be increased to £147, a rise of £45 for full time nurses.
Proposing the motion, Ms Nuala Rafferty said that the recent eight day paramedic strike had cost £450,000 in strike pay. "An all out strike by the 23,000 members of the INO would cost £1.8 million per week."
Ms Rafferty said that a full media campaign would have to be planned to coincide with the publication of the report of the Commission on Nursing.
An executive council member, Ms Edwina O'Keeffe, supported the motion: "We are living in the real world. We asked for a strike fund and this is how we get it. If we want a real union, we are going to have to pay for it."
Another council member, Ms Claire Spillane, said that the increase for full time nurses only amounted to 87p per week. "It wouldn't even buy you a glass of sparkling water. I really think if we want our organisation to improve we need to pay this money", she said.
Delegates heard that the membership fee, which increases from just under 0.5 per cent of income to 0.7 per cent, compared favourably with subscriptions to other unions.
Mr P.J. Madden, the general secretary, said that during the lead up to the threatened industrial action in February the INO had spent more than £162,000 on advertising, leaflets and a public relations consultancy. Almost £71,000 had been spent on a billboard campaign.
"The executive council decided to spend this money and get the message out. We need money in reserve for this type of situation in the future", Mr Madden said.
He told delegates that 5,000 new members had joined the INO. "A growth in members means a growth in services and a growth in the level of response," he added.