The benchmarking body set up under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness must award substantial retrospective increases to nurses if major renewed industrial action is to be averted.
This warning was given to the Government by the president of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Ms Anne Cody, at its annual conference in Galway yesterday.
She said the INO had accepted the PPF despite the fact that it did not acknowledge a key element in the settlement of the national nurses' strike last October for a pay review for promotional grades.
She said nurses now expected "very substantial increases to accrue from the benchmarking body's deliberations.
"The only weapon in the Government's armoury, over the past two years, has been that nurses' pay cannot move in isolation from other grades in the public service.
"The benchmarking body's terms of reference explicitly state that internal and cross-sectoral relativities will no longer apply.
"Therefore, now is the time and the opportunity for the Government to reaffirm its bona fides and in its submissions to the benchmarking body fully recognise and call for the further uplifting of pay for all nurses and midwives."
Earlier in the conference delegates voted for a review of national fluoridation legislation. Ms Anne Martin, a public health nurse, said babies fed on formula feeds mixed with tap water could be absorbing up to one milligram of fluoride a day. This was eight times the safety level.