There will be morning and afternoon work stoppages by nurses at hospitals and mental health facilities across the State next week.
In a major escalation of their campaign of industrial action over pay and conditions, the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) will today announce details of plans by their members to stop work for one hour at 48 centres over two days next week.
The stoppages will take place on Wednesday and Friday. All acute hospitals, both large and small, which have not already been hit with work stoppages over the past two weeks, will be affected.
These will include Tallaght and the Mater hospitals in Dublin as well as several major regional centres such as Letterkenny General Hospital, University College Hospital in Galway, Limerick Regional Hospital, Waterford Regional Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
Smaller hospitals in Wexford, Navan, Kilkenny and Monaghan will also be among those targeted.
Over the past two weeks all work stoppages by the INO and PNA nurses have been at a small number of hospitals two days a week and they have been between 11am and noon.
But next week there will be a large number of stoppages on each of two days and they will take place in the morning and in the afternoon. Full details of the stoppages will be outlined at the PNA's annual conference in Donegal this morning.
The nursing unions have said they will provide emergency cover and night duty staffing levels during the stoppages but acknowledge their action may result in some patients having hospital appointments cancelled.
Brendan Mulligan, of the HSE Employers Agency, said he was very concerned about the escalation plan. "As each day goes by, the work-to-rule is slowly grinding things to a halt and these work stoppages will compound things further," he said.
"And it's going to impact further on patients. Patients are really being used as a pawn here. There is no doubt about it, patients are suffering as a result of this industrial action," he added.
Nurses protested yesterday at the Fianna Fáil constituency office in Portlaoise during a visit there by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. He said afterwards: "I'm familiar with the issues and you know hopefully we can make progress, but obviously they outlined their position to me and I outlined the Government's position."
The Government's position is that the only way the nurses can progress their claim for a 10.6 per cent pay rise is through benchmarking. The nurses are also seeking a 35-hour working week. At present they work a 39-hour week.
As their industrial action nears the end of its third week, there is still no sign of talks to resolve it.
Fianna Fáil backbencher Denis O'Donovan said yesterday he wanted both sides to return to the negotiating table. He feels the nurses have genuine grievances and said when he raised the matter at a recent Fianna Fáil parliamentary meeting he was supported by "many backbenchers". If the nurses could put up a special case there "may be scope to deal with it [ their pay claim] outside benchmarking," he said.
He told RTÉ's News at One the dispute could cost Fianna Fáil seats in the coming election. "You have to be realistic. That's possible," he said.
"But I think that this issue can be resolved if there is political will, if the unions and the employers here can get back to the negotiating table. The proposed escalation of the strike and the stand-off is worrying."