Extra hospital staff will have to work over the millennium holiday and leave will be drastically reduced, health boards have told the State's 27,500 nurses.
In a circular, nurses have been warned that "increased demand for our services could occur against a background of disrupted power, gas, water, transport and telecommunications services, due to Year 2000 non-compliant IT equipment".
The circular also predicted that "a number of celebrations and events" would generate a greater workload for health services between December 26th, 1999, and January 3rd, 2000. It caused widespread anger at the Irish Nurses' Organisation conference in Letterkenny yesterday, where it fuelled demands for extra payments over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Although the circular states that staffing requirements would be agreed in consultation with staff, delegates said that no such talks had yet taken place. The INO's director of industrial relations, Mr David Hughes, said any arrangements for the millennium "will be agreed and not imposed".
He also said that "standard premiums will not be acceptable. The INO will be seeking an exceptional, but not extravagant, payment for members".
The conference endorsed resolutions calling for special shift premiums based on at least double pay rates for Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day. No figure was put on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. However, Mr Hughes indicated that at least £500 would be sought for nurses working either day.
Where there had been lots of media speculation on how much people would be paid for working on the eve of the millennium "and a figure of £1,000 had been brandished about fairly freely", Mr Hughes said no negotiated settlements had yet been made. Data on agreements reached in the UK averaged about £500 a day for those required to work, reaching £2,000 in the case of bank staff required to work on four consecutive days.
In the Republic, the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will seek to negotiate a centralised pay deal for all categories affected; a meeting has been set for the end of May.
Ms Dorothy Mangan of the INO's Drogheda branch said agency nurses working Christmas Day in her area were paid £205 for eight hours and £15 an hour after that, or £265 for a 12-hour shift. No one could describe this rate of pay as a "millennium special".
A rate of £500 for working New Year's Eve or New Year's Day was "cheap, considering the going rates being quoted for babysitters, waiters and barmen, many of whom will work a lot less hours for a lot more money".
Hundreds of patients have had to be kept on trolleys, and 36,000 patients left on waiting lists, while newly built hospital wards and operating theatres remained unused for lack of funds, the INO conference was told. Among hospitals mentioned was the University College Hospital in Galway, where 70 beds and two operating theatres have yet to be opened, and Tallaght Hospital, Co Dublin, where more than 900 patients have spent at least one night on trolleys.
The general secretary of the INO, Mr Liam Doran, said: "Successive ministers have not done a good job and our members are sick and tired of struggling to supply a quality service to patients as they lie on trolleys in corridors. Nobody in a country where the Celtic Tiger is roaring so loudly can say we are doing a good job."