The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has told the Government that it must talk directly to the Nursing Alliance if it wants to resolve the nurses' strike, now entering its third day.
Senior civil servants and ICTU leaders adjourned at 1.15 am today after more than nine hours of intensive talks at Government Buildings. They will report back to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the nursing unions respectively this morning on progress.
They are expected to meet again this evening to resume their efforts to put in place a process that will allow direct negotiations to begin between the alliance and health-service employers.
In an agreed statement, both sides said some progress had been made to resolve the dispute "within the parameters of social partnership", but it is understood that differences are still wide. The Government side is still hopeful that the Nursing Alliance can be persuaded to reduce its list of items for negotiation.
However, ICTU leaders are understood to have said they were only there to devise a negotiating process. This would provide for a schedule of talks, an agreed chairperson and a system for referring outstanding issues to a third party.
ICTU leaders are also understood to have refused to give the Government any commitments that concessions to the nurses could be ring-fenced. This would amount to doing the Government's job for it, a source said.
The Nursing Alliance chairman, Mr Liam Doran, was on standby last night with other nursing union leaders to begin direct negotiations. He confirmed that the agreed position with the ICTU was that it would devise a process for talks in return for the alliance "taking cognisance of the social partnership context in which the talks will take place".
Mr Doran said the alliance wished to discuss all outstanding issues, including the contentious long-service increment for staff nurses. He described the increments issue as "a fundamental cornerstone of what has to be part of the settlement, and let no one be in any confusion about it".
"Allowances, and in particular cancelling out the anomalies contained in the Labour Court recommendation" was another priority. He stressed that "extending the allowances to wider groups of nurses rather than the amounts, which was the issue".
Promotional posts, the need to identify priorities in developing nursing services, education and student intake were also identified by Mr Doran as priorities. Another was the withdrawal of reporting relationships by directors of nursing to general managers.
He said the Government's refusal to enter direct talks in the middle of a national nursing strike was "bizarre", especially as the substantive talks would take some time to conclude.
Nurses were supporting the strike "110 per cent" and arrangements for emergency cover were working well. He expressed concern that if the Government did not grasp the present opportunity for talks, then attitudes on the picket lines could harden.
A nurses' march, which begins from the Garden of Remembrance at noon, will pass through O'Connell Street, D'Olier Street and Westmoreland Street before returning for a rally at the GPO. Traffic restrictions will be in place.
The alliance had originally intended marching to Leinster House but it decided this would be "inappropriate" as the Dail had adjourned as a mark of respect to former Taoiseach Mr Jack Lynch.