Talks between unions and health service management aimed at resolving the ongoing dispute involving more than 40,000 nurses will enter a critical phase this afternoon.
The talks at Government Buildings, which began last Tuesday, will resume at 3pm today and are expected to continue into tonight if necessary.
Members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) are demanding a 10.6 per cent pay rise and a 35-hour working week.
Liam Doran, general secretary of the INO, said yesterday that the unions had made a presentation on how a 35-hour week could be achieved and were awaiting a response from the employers this afternoon.
"The first session will be for the employers to give a definitive response to the 35-hour week, and that includes a date for the introduction of a 35-hour week," he said.
However, both the HSE employers agency and Minister for Health Mary Harney have indicated that while they could quickly reduce the working week for nurses by one or two hours, they could not give a date for the introduction of a 35-hour week without a risk-assessment being carried out. This means that the talks could collapse over the weekend. However, one union source said yesterday evening: "I would be on the hopeful side of cautious."
Meanwhile, the nurses' pay claim has not yet been discussed at these talks, which are being held under the aegis of the National Implementation Body (NIB), the main troubleshooting mechanism under the social partnership process. Mr Doran said that the second session this afternoon would deal with the nurses' pay claim and he acknowledged that this remained "challenging".
Brendan Mulligan, assistant chief executive of the HSE employers agency, said last night: "We would like to build on the positive engagement over the last number of days and hopefully our comprehensive response today will be viewed by the unions as a solution-based approach in achieving a reduced working week for nurses and midwives."
Siptu, which also represents nurses at the talks, even though it is not party to the dispute, is understood to have told the NIB that the 35-hour week, if introduced, must represent a genuine improvement in conditions for nurses and not be introduced at a price which would adversely affect their working conditions and rosters.
Industrial action by the nurses in pursuit of their claims is now coming to the end of its fourth week. The nurses are engaged in a work-to-rule during which they are refusing to deal with non-essential phone calls or carry out clerical or IT duties.
The HSE has said that the action is costing it up to €2 million a week and it has instructed hospitals across the State to begin postponing appointments for out-patient clinics and elective procedures in the coming days as a result of what it says are the risks posed by the work-to-rule.
The president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Peter McLoone, who is also a member of the NIB, told a conference in Killarney on Thursday that this weekend's talks on the dispute would be one of the most critical the trade union movement had faced for some time.
Meanwhile, the INO has called off its three-day annual conference, which was due to take place in Killarney the week after next. It is replacing it with a one-day conference in Dublin and it has invited the leaders of all the political parties to attend to debate health issues.