The Irish Nurses Organisation is to embark on a series of mass meetings over the next two weeks to mobilise members for a renewed confrontation with the Government over nurses' pay.
The other nursing unions, while expressing their anger at the decision of the Government to defer the implementation of pay elements of the Nursing Commission's report until it has discussed the issue with the ICTU, have sought a meeting of the Nursing Alliance before deciding on further action.
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, did not help the situation when he told a conference of the Irish Association of Critical Care Nurses in Tullamore yesterday that there could be no return to "leap-frogging claims" in the public service. Nurses' pay would have to be addressed "in the context of public pay policy".
Later, ministerial aides sought to soften the effect of his off-the-cuff comment by saying that he simply reiterated the Government's known position that it had to be "mindful of avoiding situations where public sector guidelines could be exceeded". This more muted interpretation may be a sign that the Government is beginning to realise that a confrontation with the nurses' unions over the pay elements of the Nursing Commission report might be more damaging to public service pay policy than continuing to abide by negotiating procedures agreed in 1997. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions remained silent yesterday, but it is known to be unenthusiastic about the idea of being dragged back into the nurses' pay dispute by the Government.
All the nursing unions attacked the Government yesterday for refusing to abide by the terms of last year's settlement. Under this, it was agreed to refer a number of pay-related issues to the Nursing Commission. The commission, if it saw fit, could refer these back to the State's industrial relations machinery for resolution and that is what it proposed in Wednesday's document.
Nearly 150 branch representatives of the 24,000-strong Irish Nurses Organisation, the largest nurses' union, met union leaders for five hours yesterday in Dublin to discuss the commission's report. While the meeting welcomed the overall thrust of the report and its proposals for restructuring the profession, delegates repeatedly criticised the Government's stance on pay.
It was decided to call a series of nine regional meetings throughout the Republic, beginning with one in Dublin's Regency Hotel next Monday. These meetings will be followed by a meeting of the INO executive on October 6th, at which a resolution will probably be tabled calling for national industrial action.
That resolution will be sent to specially-convened branch meetings, where delegates are likely to be mandated to vote for the proposed action at a special delegate conference on October 27th. Other unions have yet to decide their tactics, but it is conceivable that a national nurses' strike could take place before the end of November.
The INO pursued a similar mobilisation strategy in 1996 and 1997. It was so successful that the union had difficulty persuading its members to accept the final Government offer, worth £87 million, in February 1997.
Mr Doran said last night that the mood of branch delegates at yesterday's meeting was one of anger that the terms which settled last year's dispute were not being honoured.
SIPTU's national nursing officer, Mr Oliver McDonagh, said after a meeting of the union's national nursing council that his union would be telling the Minister: "We have a Labour Court recommendation and now we have a Nursing Commission report that tells us we can negotiate on these issues. That's exactly what we are going to do."
The general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, Mr Des Kavanagh, said: "Nurses are the lowest-paid professionals in the health service, with the longest working week and the shortest holidays. We will not be deflected from accessing the industrial relations machinery of the State in pursuit of our rights."