Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has refused to say if he would accede to one of the key demands of nurses engaged in industrial action - and give them a date for the implementation of a 35-hour week. Nurses say getting a date for a shorter working week is key to solving their dispute with the health service management.
But Mr Kenny, when asked yesterday if he would give in to the demand, only said he would meet them and negotiate with them.
He said: "I'm not aware of the details of what went on at the National Implementation Body discussions with the nursing unions for three weeks, but if you accept the principle of a reduction in hours, then I think you've got to be able to progress the talks to a point where you can reach a conclusion on that."
He added that nurses had put forward proposals for greater productivity, efficiency and for changes in work practices and management had to be creative in receiving those proposals.
The Labour Party has already said it would give the nurses a date for a 35-hour week. Asked if this meant there was a difference between the alternative coalition parties on this issue, he said "no".
But on the second element of the nurses' claim - a demand for a 10.6 per cent pay rise - Mr Kenny said it will only be sorted out "inside the social partnership arena". He said benchmarking, through which the nurses have been urged to pursue this claim, had to be more open and flexible.
Mr Kenny said the HSE decision to dock nurses' pay by 13.16 per cent from Friday week if they did not desist from their work-to-rule would exacerbate the dispute. Asked if their pay shouldn't be cut, he said: "I would hope that were I taoiseach tomorrow, I would be down meeting the nurses seeing how could we work out an arrangement here that this would not get to that."
Minister for Health Mary Harney said she wanted to know what Mr Kenny would, as taoiseach, tell the nurses and if he agreed with their 35-hour week demand. Such changes would diminish the hours available for patient care and cost several hundred million euro, she said.
Mr Kenny was speaking at Dublin's Rotunda hospital, where he stressed the need to stop the spread of infections like MRSA.