The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has withdrawn its threat to strike in a dispute over a pay rise, the union said tonight.
Nurses had condemned the plan by health service managers to withhold the pay rise, due on June 1st, in response to the union's non-cooperation to the role of health care assistants.
The union denied it was failing to co-operate with the implementation of the health care assistants programme and had accused managers of retaliatory action over the A&E protests.
The INO's announcement followed recommendations by the National Implementation Body which would mean that the health care assistant programme would not be a barrier to the payment of the scheduled pay increase.
The NIB found the INO had "no principled objection" to the implementation of all modules of the health care assistants programme and that the Health Service Executive employers agency accepted that there were issues surrounding the implementation of the assistants which required clarification.
It recommended full cooperation for the introduction of the programme as soon as possible, and for issues surrounding delegating responsibility from nurses to health care assistants be addressed by health service managers.
The INO welcomed the recommendations, which it said placed the development of the health care assistants programme in the "proper context" of the report on effective utilisation of professional skills of nurses and midwives.
The NIB found there should be a high level working group to examine the outstanding recommendations in that report, which included the issues of delegation, staffing levels and the implementation of protocols for health care assistants.
Dave Hughes, INO general secretary, said: "This was never a matter for railroading by the employer and for the first time we now have recognition from them that there are serious professional, legal and ethical issues to be addressed as well as industrial relations issues.
"The employers were never in a position to justify withholding the increases for nurses and midwives and the INO's response to their threat will hopefully have taught them that nurses and midwives will not be taken for granted and must be treated equally with all other public servants."