As the work-to-rule by 40,000 nurses enters its sixth day it has emerged that the two unions representing them are now also considering a number of protests at events attended by Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrat TDs in coming days and weeks.
The first such protest is due to take place at the launch of the local Fianna Fáil election campaign in Portlaoise next Thursday night.
Seán Fleming, a Fianna Fáil backbencher and local TD, said he had been informed the protest would be a peaceful one.
"They are good people. They are entitled to make their protest. I'm hoping there will be negotiations sooner rather than later to solve it." Critically, he said, he believed it would need political intervention ultimately to solve it. "But the Government can only respond when they know what is planned next week."
The nurses, who are seeking a 10.6 per cent pay rise and a 35-hour working week, plan to escalate their campaign of action next week.
Meanwhile, John McGuinness, another FF backbencher, said he believed the nurses had a legitimate right to have their concerns addressed but, like the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, he believed benchmarking was the way to go about it. This route has been rejected by the two unions representing the nurses currently engaged in industrial action - the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA).
He said he was met with mixed views on the nurses' industrial action when canvassing on constituents doorsteps. Some were totally against the nurses and some for them.
Liam Doran, general secretary of the INO, said claims by the HSE and others that benchmarking was the only game in town was "patently untrue" when the INO and PNA had produced ample evidence to show management had gone outside benchmarking to resolve even more intractable disputes within the public service.
He said for the HSE to issue figures stating that the average salary of a nurse was €56,000 was grossly misleading as this was based on a crude averaging of the total nursing pay bill. "The maximum pay for a senior staff nurse, after 21 years of service, is €45,603 per annum," he claimed.
But Brendan Mulligan, assistant chief executive of the HSE Employers' Agency, said at the end of the day the nurses would have to accept a Labour Court recommendation to pursue their claims through benchmarking.
"They say they are just putting pressure on the management side but at the end of the day patients are suffering and they can't just turn their back on the patients."
However, the unions maintain that their current industrial action is not impacting on patient care.
Meanwhile an alliance of doctors and patients representatives including Patients Together, Co-operating for Cancer Care in the northwest and the Doctors Alliance for Better Public Healthcare, yesterday came out in support of the nurses involved in the dispute.
Janette Byrne of Patients Together said patients were not suffering more because of the nurse's work-to-rule. "They are waiting just as long and finding services as hard to access as they always do ... I think the HSE are doing a huge disservice to patients and to health staff by trying to blame it on the nurses' work-to-rule," she said.
And Prof John Nolan of the Doctors Alliance for Better Public Healthcare, who works at St James's Hospital in Dublin, said: "It's ridiculous to say that things are worse because of the nurses' action - it's a smokescreen."