The Minister for Health came under sharp attack from a succession of Opposition speakers for his handling of the nurses' strike.
A Labour motion, moved in private member's time, censured Mr Cowen for "his failure to take appropriate action to secure a solution to the dispute," and noted his "belated invitation" to the unions for preliminary talks.
A Government amendment endorsed the efforts being made by the Minister to bring about a resolution of the dispute. The House will vote on the issue tonight. The Labour spokeswoman on health, Ms Liz McManus, said that the nurses were tired of promises which had not been delivered upon. She accused the Government of engaging in "macho brinkmanship".
The Taoiseach, she added, had supported the Minister, while the Mr Cowen had tried to frighten nurses with the argument that they would be responsible for cutbacks in the health services.
"Yesterday, on the eve of the strike, the Minister sat down for the first time with the Nursing Alliance. It took until the eleventh hour for him to do so, when there was no hope of averting a strike."
The Fine Gael spokesman on health, Mr Alan Shatter, said that the Minister had failed scandalously to manage the health service. "From the time when the strike ballot commenced, instead of trying to resolve the crisis with which we are now confronted, the Government arranged to spend in the region of £1/4 million on a slick public relations and advertising campaign with the Orwellian purpose of targeting nurses as public enemies."
Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) said that the Government had no excuse for its failure to fully address the issues which had led to the strike. "Because they were predominantly women, nurses were regarded for decades by the men in Church and State who controlled the health system, as worthy only of menial tasks."
Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) said that somebody should tell the Minister for Finance that the situation regarding the nurses "requires far more sensitivity than he might dish out to his friends in a bar in Cheltenham". Rejecting criticism of his handling of the dispute, Mr Cowen insisted that it was never a case of calling on the Nursing Alliance to "take or leave" the Labour Court findings.
He stressed that there had been no change in the Government's position that it wanted the Labour Court findings accepted and to move on the other issues in the context of social partnership and the Nursing Commission report.
Mr Cowen said the Taoiseach had spelt out an alternative in September, which was a renewal of commitment to social partnership at national level and a "series of practical steps to a new Partnership Agreement".
That would include "an approach to public service pay which is imaginative in ensuring that the income of public servants should more closely reflect their performance and not be based on so-called traditional relativities".
He repeated that the primacy of the Labour Court as a means of settling disputes had to be upheld, but he added that his meeting with the Nursing Alliance on Monday resulted in a "mutual recognition of the problems that exist on both sides".
Focusing on other public sector groups, the Minister said it was important to ensure that "arguments which may seem specific to nursing now are not later used by any of these groups to advance their particular case".
The Taoiseach said he hoped the nurses' dispute could be resolved within the terms of Partnership 2000. Mr Ahern said that all of the efforts and negotiations on the matter were the collective responsibility of the Government. "We are anxious that a process can be found, as speedily as possible to deal with the issues raised by nurses in a way that is consistent with social partnership."
Mr Ahern was replying, on the Order of Business, to the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, and the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn.
