The dispute may be over but nurses are not happy, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent
All the indications in the run-up to yesterday's counting of the votes by Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) members on proposals to end the 7½-week-old nurses' dispute were that the result would be tight. Over the weekend, executives of the union travelled around the State to brief its 31,000 members eligible to vote on the proposals put forward by the National Implementation Body (NIB) to try and bring an end to a dispute which became more bitter by the week.
The union did not encourage members either to accept or reject the offer.
There was a huge turnout at the regional meetings and one union official admitted he was "savaged" at each one he attended.
The nurses had been seeking a 10.6 per cent pay rise and a 35-hour working week. At present, they work 39 hours.
The proposals from the NIB fell short of their demands, but offered a 1½ hour cut in the working week of nurses by June next year and the setting up of an independent commission to see if, in fact, it could be cut in due course to 35 hours.
And the NIB said the nurses, like others in the public service, would have to pursue their pay claim through benchmarking.
In the end, when the votes by INO members were counted, just 1,746 ballots separated the sides - but it was enough of a majority in favour of the NIB's proposals to bring an end to the dispute.
This means that thousands of nurses who voted against the proposals will be disappointed.
And even among those who voted to accept the proposals in the face of a threat by the HSE to cut their pay by 13.16 per cent if they continued with their work-to-rule, there is huge anger - anger in particular at what they perceive as a smear campaign run against them by their employer during the dispute.
It will take a long time to build trust again between themselves and their employer. The threat to cut their pay had "caused a deep wound that will take a lot of fixing", the INO's deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said.
It will take time to mop up after the dispute.
Records which were kept on paper during their work-to-rule, under which they refused to carry out clerical or IT duties, will have to be computerised and operations cancelled will have to be rescheduled.
But there is generally a sigh of relief all around that their campaign of industrial action has come to an end.
The relief will be especially great in Government circles as we go into today's election.
While members of the Psychiatric Nurses' Association were also involved in the dispute and their ballots will not be counted until June 5th, how they vote will not now affect the end result.
The INO nurses also voted to accept Towards 2016, which means they should quickly get a pay rise of about 5 per cent.
But just as one headache for the HSE comes to an end, another is about to begin, with thousands of other staff about to jump on the bandwagon and seek a similar reduction in their working hours.