Nurses will require further information about the new senior staff posts before deciding how to vote on the proposals to resolve their dispute.
As nurses began a "line by line" examination of the document last night, a member of the strike committee at St Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, said the outcome could hinge on how the 2,500 senior staff positions were allocated.
It remained to be seen how many such posts would be created in each hospital, and guarantees would be required on this before the ballot took place. "In this hospital we have a lot of people on long service but we have no idea how many would qualify under this proposal."
The nurse, who asked not to be named, stressed that the full details of the proposals had yet to be absorbed. It was with "`a certain amount of reservation" that nurses were returning to work.
The Labour Court's proposal was a "very, very complex" document, she added, but nurses felt they owed it both to their unions and the court to study it carefully.
At Waterford Regional Hospital the mood was equally cautious. A strike committee spokesman, Mr Adrian Tennant, said there was a "mixed reaction".
Mr Don Culliton, the INO industrial relations officer for the south east, said he accepted that the nurses had not got everything they wanted. However, when they looked closely at the document they would see that it had addressed the issues which had led to the strike.
Information meetings will be held at the Bridge Hotel, Waterford, on Saturday and at the Hotel Kilkenny on Monday.
