Minister for Health Mary Harney has again said the current nursing dispute must be resolved within the benchmarking process.
Ms Harney was speaking in Donegal, where she today addressed the annual conference of the Psychiatric Nurses Association.
The Minister told delegates it is important that the focus on patients is not lost during the dispute.
Irish Patients' Association
PNA chairman Liam McNamara, welcomed Ms Harney as the "highest paid Minister for Health in Europe".
Ms Harney's address came as a body representing the interests of patients called on all parties to enter into "resolution-focused talks".
More than 40,000 members of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) are demanding a 10.5 per cent pay increase and a 35-hour working week, which has been refused by the Health Service Executive.
There is still no sign of any talks to try to resolve the dispute. A work-to-rule by about 40,000 nurses continues at all hospitals.
Nurses' representatives are due to announce details of the next phase of work stoppages tomorrow.
They are expected to hold a series of stoppages at around 50 hospitals throughout the State next Wednesday and Friday.
The stoppages are expected to affect most of the acute hospitals across the State which have not already experienced them. As has been the case so far, they will be for one hour.
The hospitals to be affected will include large hospitals in Dublin, such as the Mater and Tallaght hospitals; Letterkenny General Hospital; Galway's University College Hospital; Mayo General Hospital; Limerick Regional Hospital; Cork University Hospital; Waterford Regional Hospital; Wexford General Hospital; Tullamore General Hospital; St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny; Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda; and Cavan General Hospital. Others will also be hit.General secretary of the INO, Liam Doran, said yesterday that resolve of union members was strong.
"The resolve of our members is solid, but obviously it would be a preference for everyone to start talking. But, in the absence of talking, the campaign will continue. And we would still argue that the talking should start now rather than later," he said.
Liam Doran, INO
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is understood to have discussed the impasse with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday, but no initiative was taken.
Meanwhile, a report by the Health Service Executive on what it says is the impact on patients from the current industrial action has been described as making "grim reading" by patients' representatives.
The Irish Patients' Association said the public has been told to date that the working environment and the performance of the healthcare system during the dispute is "not much different [to] any other day".
"This report clearly suggests that this is no so and that patients are being increasingly affected by this dispute," a statement said.
The HSE report, leaked to some media, notes delays in the assessment of patients in emergency departments as the use of electronic patient assessment system is banned and must be operated manually.
"If there was no industrial action this would not be a normal practice" said Irish Patients' Association chairman Stephen McMahon.
He also noted the reports claims that junior doctors were being called to wards by nursing staff (who will not communicate information by telephone) for non-urgent work, and then being recalled to the same ward "several times in short succession".
"The result is that junior doctors are being diverted from patients in more pressing need of their attention."
Mr McMahon said that this would not be a normal practice if there was no industrial action.
"We call on all parties to enter into resolution-focused talks in the best interests of patients. We call on the INO and PNA to defer further proposed actions to allow talks to happen.
"Clearly it is time for reasonable men and women to read this report as a wake-up call and not a death knell for some patients."