FULL accident and emergency, coronary and intensive care services will be provided during the nurses strike, if it goes ahead as scheduled on Monday week.
Nursing union leaders and health service managers also agreed yesterday that staffing would he provided for maternity and cancer hospitals. Yesterday's meeting failed to reach agreement on the staffing of telephones in hospitals, however, and further discussions on this issue are expected next week.
Meanwhile nurses who are members of SIPTU yesterday voted 92 per cent in favour of strike action. The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) voted by 30-1 for strike action three weeks ago.
"There can now be no room for doubt as to the resolve of nurses across all four nursing unions to pursue their legitimate demands," said Mr Noel Dowling of SIPTU after the result became known. He called on the Minister for Health to initiate talks immediately.
The agreement on essential services followed almost six hours of talks at Dublin Castle yesterday between union and management representatives. Union representatives later met managers of agencies providing services for the mentally handicapped.
There was no move yesterday to deal with the issues at the centre of the dispute, although the Labour Court is expected to try to convene a hearing on the matter next week.
The chief executive of the Health Service Employers' Agency, Mr Gerard Barry, said yesterday that while considerable progress had been made, agreement on the staffing of telephones was an important unresolved issue.
The deputy general secretary off the INO said he wanted to assure patients and the public that "all essential services, both in hospitals and in the community" would be staffed if the strike goes ahead.
"However, other services such as out patient clinics, elective (non urgent) surgery and admissions will be withdrawn and nurses will not perform non nursing tasks such as administration and answering the phones."
The INO said it had for some years been seeking to agree a code of practice for the provision of essential services in the event of a nurses' strike.