IT is some measure of the magnitude of the nurses' victory that the final award for staff nurses of £21,000 a year is £500 above the original target which the unions set. This was a dispute which was driven from below and, at times, a dispute over which the union leaderships, especially in the largest union, the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), had little control.
The initial offer from management of £10 million was never seen as anything but an opening gambit and was quickly rejected. But when the package reached £37.5 million in April, it was put to a ballot with a recommendation for acceptance.
Nurses thought otherwise, however, and rejected the offer by four to one. The Government realised it was facing a crisis in its public service pay policy and the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, met Irish Congress of Trade Unions leaders immediately.
A special adjudication process, involving employer and trade union representatives, resulted in a new package worth £50 million. ,This was accepted by SIPTU and the Psychiatric Nurses Association of Ireland. INO and IMPACT members rejected it.
Any illusions that minor tinkering with the terms could secure acceptance were shattered when over 90 per cent of INO and IMPACT members voted for strike action from February 10th.
As so often before, it was the Labour Court which came to the rescue. The chairman, Ms Evelyn Owens, issued a recommendation less than 60 hours before the strike was due to begin.
This included a rise for senior staff nurses of £3,000 a year and, perhaps more importantly, a commission on nursing to look at long-standing grievances, such as the low professional status of nurses within the health service and inadequate career structures. Lack of access to early retirement was also to be examined.
It looked at first as if the strike might not be averted. The court recommendation was issued on a Friday night yet the INO decided to defer a decision on calling off the strike until Sunday to consult its members as fully as possible.
SIPTU decided on Saturday to defer action. This initially brought considerable criticism, not just from the INO but from its own members. However, it is also helped break the logjam.
Once the strike was called off on Monday, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, moved quickly to agree terms of reference for a commission. He also got an authoritative chairwoman in Miss Justice Mella Carroll of the High Court.
He also gave an unconditional commitment that the Government would accept any recommendations issued by the commission and asked the Pensions Commission to urgently examine early retirement.
The nurses have now won an £87 million package by their militancy, born out of a sense of long-suffered grievances.