Ten thousand militant nurses on the streets of Dublin is a sight to strike fear into any politician's heart, for there are another 15,000 activists where they came from. TDs realise the profession could make a powerful voting bloc, along with their families and friends, at election time.
Still, it was a powerful sign of Government determination when Harry Blaney, Mildred Fox, Tom Gildea and Jackie Healy-Rae lined up in the Dail to support Brian Cowen and his handling of the dispute. However, Fianna Fail backbenchers felt it politic to assure striking nurses of their personal support within, of course, the parameters of partnership.
Pat Rabbitte had sharp words for them on Wednesday as a Labour Party motion critical of the Minister for Health and Children headed for defeat. They reminded him, he said, of the corncrake. He could hear them, but he didn't know which side of the fence they were on.
Mind you, Labour Party and Fine Gael spokespersons were hardly models of trade union militancy. They were strident in their pursuit of the Government and blamed the Minister for not preventing the strike.
Charlie McCreevy was targeted for helping to precipitate it through the use of intemperate language, and Bertie Ahern was urged to settle it. But while they urged negotiations and concessions, the main opposition parties stopped short of advocating a breach of Partnership 2000.
It was a mirror image of the political posturing that took place in 1997. Back then, the Fine Gael/Lab our/Democratic Left government was in conflict with the nurses and trying to hold the line on public sector pay while Fianna Fail was hallooing from the opposition benches. The difference this time is that there was no last-minute deal and nurses are on the picket line for the very first time.
Charlie McCreevy was never one to take prisoners, so when nurses rejected a Labour Court pay offer in early September costing about £110 million in a full year, the Minister laid down the law. Pay demands by nurses and others, he said on RTE, would "wreck the Celtic Tiger".
It wasn't a subtle approach. The context was an announcement by Mr McCreevy of an expected €5.8 billion Exchequer surplus for 1999. It came the day before the Government was due to meet the social partners about a new national agreement, and it coincided with revelations at the Dail Committee of Public Accounts of widespread tax evasion and shady dealings.
Peter Cassells remarked that if the Minister intended to lecture ICTU on pay, he might as well cancel the meeting. Tension was defused when the Taoiseach secured an acceptance by the social partners that any wage claim should be within the parameters of Partnership 2000.
But as the weeks rolled by and militancy grew within the nurses' unions, it became clear that congress would not be able to rein in its members. The Taoiseach departed from his Mr Nice Guy approach and caused something of a sensation when he socked it to the nurses at a parliamentary party meeting in Galway. The Government, he told gobsmacked TDs and senators, would stand firm against the nurses' latest pay demands. With Mr Ahern leading, the Minister for Health and Children swung into action with an equally tough response. The Tanaiste, Mary Harney, ensured there was no perceived weakness in the Government's determination to hold the line on pay.
Then Mr McCreevy lost the plot when he antagonised nurses by using phrases like "everybody with any half brain" and "you would want to be a half-wit" in commenting on their threatened strike.
The intemperate remarks may have displeased the Taoiseach, but they didn't alter the Government's stance. Mr Ahern went into the Dail on October 12th to outline mechanisms that might be used to address their claims under a successor of Partnership 2000, but, he said, "we cannot pay any more". The Labour Court ruling would have to stand.
But nothing remains static in industrial negotiations. Even before nurses placed pickets last Tuesday, preliminary contact was made between the Government and the Nursing Alliance as they explored the nature of a settlement formula.
The nurses' unions appeared to agree that any settlement should be within the terms of social partnership, but, mindful of the rejection of previous pay offers by militant nurses, the Government sought to recruit the ICTU as referee and enforcer of any deal.
ICTU wasn't prepared to accept that poisoned chalice. It took three days of negotiation before a formula could be found under which direct negotiations between the alliance and the health service employers could begin.
Even then, ICTU was offering no assurances that pay increases would be ring-fenced. All that was on the table was a schedule for talks, an agreed chair and a mechanism to refer outstanding issues to a third party.
A rerun of the Labour Court deliberations appears to be on offer. The outcome - and the response by nurses to a modified pay offer - remains shrouded in uncertainty. A range of other public sector unions will be watching developments with considerable self-interest.