The Health Service Executive (HSE) is to call in consultants to examine how nurses' working hours might be reduced without affecting services to patients, it has announced.
In a statement, the HSE said a "realistic and honest" approach was the only way to resolve the dispute and that the more it was prolonged, the more patients would suffer.
It said a consultancy would be chosen "in the next few weeks" to produce a feasibility study on the issue within a six-month timeframe.
Dave Hughes, INO deputy general secretary
The move will be viewed as an attempt to find a breakthrough in the five-week old nurses' dispute. The Taoiseach today proposed an independent review in order to bring about the 35-hour working week demanded by nurses.
In a statement, the HSE said the commissioned study would assess the feasibility of introducing "on a cost-neutral and whole-time equivalent (WTE) neutral basis, a reduction in the weekly hours of work (of the staff involved) by reconfiguration of the workforce".
"Such a feasibility study would determine whether any potential risk to the availability, quality and accessibility of health service provision might ensue," the statement added.
The HSE said a group of suppliers who had previously qualified to take part in 'mini-tender' competitions for medical consultancy services, had today been notified of its plans and asked to submit expressions of interest.
"During the recent talks with the National Implementation Body, the HSE had been actively engaged to see what working week reductions could be introduced.
"It established that without a further detailed analysis, a reduction of more than one hour, at this time, would create too many risks for patient care."
The HSE sad that based on these facts, it had proposed a two-stranded approach which had been rejected by the Irish Nurses' Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, the unions involved in the current dispute.
The first strand involved a one-hour reduction in the working week achieved through "efficiencies in rostering, flexibility, skill mix and payroll".
The second would be a feasibility study to identify if further working-week reductions could be introduced.
"A realistic and honest approach is the only way to resolve this dispute. The longer it is prolonged, the more patients will suffer and the more much needed resources will be diverted from future service developments," the HSE statement concluded.
INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes told ireland.comthe HSE had not been in contact with the union with regard to the proposal.
He said aspects of it were "a bit encouraging" but he was concerned that the HSE's reference to seeking expressions of interest from a group of suppliers it had previously used meant that it was limiting itself to a small group who might submit tenders.
"We would be a bit surprised at that. We would expect if they were doing this as part of the dispute, that the terms of reference would be agreed with us," Mr Hughes said.
"What it has in its favour is that they are indicating they are looking for the study within a six-month timeframe."
Mr Hughes said that was "a bit encouraging" because the unions had feared any such study into reducing nurses' working hours would be dragged out over a long, undefined period.
"We don't have the detail - it hasn't been agreed with us."
The INO official said the statement was perhaps "a little bit premature" in the context of an "agreed settlement" but the INO was still open to discuss the issue.
On the question of whether the HSE's move was connected with the Taoiseach's proposal earlier today to bring in consultants to look at the possibility of reducing the nurses' working week, Mr Hughes said he believed the proposal outlined in the statement to be something "worked up separately" from Mr Ahern's suggestion.
The Taoiseach today raised the possibility that an international expert might be called in to help resolve the dispute.
According to the HSE and the Minister for Health, it will not be possible to reduce the full-time working week for nurses from 39 hours to 35 with immediate effect without serious changes to work practices. The HSE claims such a move would involve taking over seven million working hours out of the system.
Nurses have been warned by the HSE that they face a pay cut of over 13 per cent from next Friday if they continue with their industrial action.
It says the row is costing €2 million a week and that it is having a major impact on services in the affected health facilities and hospitals.
However, the nurses' bodies have insisted patient care has not been compromised.
Yesterday, the president of the INO warned Minister for Health Mary Harney that the votes of over
40,000 nurses involved in the current dispute were "for sale" and would be used "judiciously and tactically" in the general election on May 24th next.