Nurses on strike were urged by their leaders at yesterday's rally in Dublin to remain united in the face of "moral blackmailing" and growing tension in the coming days.
The Nursing Alliance chairman, Mr Liam Doran, said: "The next few days will be difficult. We know, more than you can ever imagine, the pressure of being on strike yet delivering emergency cover without pay."
Echoing his words, Mr Des Kavanagh, general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, said: "Every pound won will be hard fought for. Every percentage gained will be achieved at some cost and some pain." But by continuing to show solidarity nurses would achieve the "watershed" they were seeking.
Mr Doran said it was "a bit rich" for the Government to portray the dispute as merely about pay and leap-frogging other professions, in light of the recent financial scandals.
"Of course, this is about pay and of course this is about your pay and conditions in general, but it is also about the future integrity of the health service itself.
"There cannot be social partnership and cohesion in a country that has a £2 billion current budget surplus but beds closed in the Mater Hospital, theatres closed in Vincent's because we haven't got enough of a human resource of qualified nursing personnel."
The Irish Nurses' Organisation president, Ms Anne Cody, said the "lie" that nurses were irresponsible by going on strike "has been put to bed in the last few days when we have provided the cover that we said we would."
She said "if one message is to go out from here today it is to listen to what we are saying, look at what is happening to the people that we are all charged as responsible professionals to look after. "To the Taoiseach, to the Minister and to the Government at large, we are not going away."
Mr Kevin Callanan, national official of IMPACT's health division, cited the "litany of scandals", from the Ansbacher revelations to the DIRT inquiry, and said "we are demanding that we get fair play in that context and in that climate."
