The initial opposition by nurses to the Labour Court recommendations is subsiding and the nurses' unions leadership are now confident the settlement proposals will be accepted.
Following a series of information meetings over the weekend, the INO general secretary, Mr Liam Doran, said he was confident his members would accept the Labour Court package.
Meanwhile, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) warned yesterday that the backlog of work which built up during the nine-day dispute would not be cleared until next spring despite the best efforts of hospital managers.
The INO completed its series of regional information meetings at the weekend, with 700 nurses attending a meeting in Waterford and over 250 at a Tralee meeting. Both were held on Saturday.
Mr Doran said: "The general feedback has been that, once the total implications have been spelt out, the indications are that members accept it is a significant step forward and they accept the validity of the recommendations for acceptance." On the basis of the feedback he said he was confident the Labour Court recommendations would be accepted.
The one difficulty the INO has, which is not shared by the other unions, is that each of the promotional grades are being balloted separately. In effect, each grade holds the power of veto over the union's acceptance of the package.
Ward sisters have been the most vocal critics of the new offer. But Mr Doran was optimistic they would see the benefits of the package and accept it. A special information meeting for ward sisters will be held in Dublin today.
SIPTU, IMPACT and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association also reported strong support for the Labour Court offer.
"Everybody is disappointed there is not more in it, but when they consider the gains since this process began, they realise they have been quite substantial," SIPTU nursing officer, Mr Oliver McDonagh, said.
"Once we got down to explaining all parts of the proposals the overall response has been very positive," Psychiatric Nurses' Association general secretary, Mr Des Kavanagh, said. "I would be surprised if there was not a good `yes' vote in the PNA."
The unions have already commenced balloting members. Each of the four unions is conducting separate ballots. The results are expected to be known on Friday.
In the event of any of the unions rejecting the proposals, they would be required to issue fresh strike notice before they could legally place fresh pickets on hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association warned yesterday that the backlog of 56,000 out-patient appointments and up to 10,000 elective admissions created by the nurses' dispute would take longer to clear than some major hospitals were claiming.
Most major hospitals are resuming out-patient services today, and elective admissions are recommencing this week. The IHCA secretary general, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said it would take until November 7th for the larger hospitals to get back to full capacity.
An Eastern Health Board advertisement in yesterday's newspapers said the Adelaide and Meath Hospital planned to see all out-patients whose appointments were postponed during the strike within four weeks. This would be achieved by a combination of methods including increasing the size of the clinics and holding evening and Saturday sessions.
Mr Fitzpatrick said his members would be willing to co-operate with such measures, but feared that junior doctors, who had been placed under considerable pressure during the dispute, may not have the reserves for this extra work.
He noted that a number of operating theatres had been closed prior to the strike because of the shortage of theatre nurses. This problem would hinder efforts to clear the backlog of work.
Elective admissions were stopped in some hospitals from December 1st last year because of funding shortages, Mr Fitzpatrick said, adding that he hoped that funding would be available this year to prevent a recurrence of this.