The Health Service Employers' Agency has advised local managers to stop nurses' pay from next Tuesday in the event of industrial action going ahead. Pay deductions to third parties such as credit unions are also to cease.
Normally, nurses' salaries are processed by the middle of the month. Many nurses whose unions can offer little or nothing in the way of strike pay will have expected to receive a full salary for October and suffer any deductions for strike action in November. The Irish Nurses' Organisation has no strike fund.
Meanwhile, the impact of the dispute is already being felt within the health services. There have been no elective admissions for a week, 7,000 outpatient appointments a day will be cancelled from Monday and relatives of 8,000 people with mental handicap have been asked to make alternative care arrangements.
One of the State's leading consultants, Prof Shaun McCann, has expressed concern that intensive treatment for leukaemia patients cannot continue in a strike. Speaking as head of the Irish Haematology Association, Prof McCann made what is the harshest estimate so far of the likely impact of the nurses' strike on clinical services.
He said medical staff "can't physically do what nurses do. The Government needs to know, and the people need to know, that we cannot continue for more than a day or two if there is a strike".
On behalf of junior hospital doctors, the Irish Medical Organisation has warned the Government that its members are not prepared to do work normally done by nurses. Its director of industrial relations, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said some local managers had attempted to roster junior doctors for longer hours but this would be strongly resisted by the IMO.
Yesterday the Nursing Alliance rejected a call by the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, for it "to pursue the further pay aspirations of nurses" through any successor to Partnership 2000.
Mr Cowen wrote to the unions yesterday afternoon reiterating the Government's willingness to pay the Labour Court award, but within two hours they replied that Tuesday's strike could be averted only by addressing the core issues of pay and improved allowances for their 28,000 members.
Official sources said the Government has decided against last-minute efforts to negotiate with nurses, because there is no obvious basis for compromise. An offer of talks would only raise false expectations.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, reiterated his support for Mr Cowen yesterday, saying the Government "has to be consistent in its approach" to public service pay.
In Cork yesterday, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said that in the past, weak governments had caused unnecessary and negative problems for the Irish economy. A democracy could not be run on the basis of one interest group telling a government that if they did not accede to particular demands, they would withdraw their services.