Unions representing tens of thousands of nurses have said they will take their main claims for pay increases back to the Labour Court in a final push for a negotiated solution to the long-running dispute.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) said the move represented "one last chance for procedure to prevail over conflict" in the wake of the benchmarking report, which saw the vast majority of nurses receiving no increases.
Both unions are also to hold a series of regional meetings to discuss the industrial relations strategy pursued to date and to consider future options.
PNA general secretary Des Kavanagh said no option, including the "nuclear option" of strike action or mass resignation, was being ruled out.
The claims that are to be referred to the Labour Court are for parity of pay between the basic staff nurse/midwife grade and the basic therapeutic grade in the health service, as well as a claim for a 10.6 per cent increase for all nursing and midwifery grades to restore a previous pay differential relative to social care workers.
Unions maintain that an anomaly existed whereby nurses in the intellectual disability and child psychiatric services were paid less than social care workers who reported to them.
The benchmarking body found that the claim for parity with the therapeutic grades was beyond its terms of reference, while it said nurses in the intellectual disability sector who work alongside social care workers, but not those in other areas, should be upgraded.
The unions said yesterday they had come under severe pressure from members in recent days to revive a campaign of industrial action that was averted last May on the basis of a strong commitment that the benchmarking body would deal with their pay claims.
INO president Madeline Spiers said the benchmarking report was an "absolute disgrace". The organisation's deputy general secretary, Dave Hughes, said that "after 20 years of social partnership, it is quite incredible that the mechanisms for avoiding industrial conflict have all regarded the basic claims of nurses and midwives as being too hot to handle and have instead passed them from one to another, refusing to adjudicate upon them based on their merit alone".
He said the unions had put these claims to the Labour Court as far back as 2003 but were told they could only be progressed through benchmarking.
Mr Hughes said that in June 2006 the unions had told the Labour Court the terms of reference of the benchmarking body could not deal with the nurses' claims but were again informed that they could only be processed through the benchmarking process.
He said that last April, the National Implementation Body (NIB) had also urged the unions to put to the benchmarking body the case of the expanded role of the nurse.
However, he said the benchmarking body had effectively "rubbished the statement made by the NIB".
Mr Kavanagh said there was growing anger on the part of nurses at the benchmarking report findings.
The INO said it would be asking, through the offices of the European Commission, the EU advocate general to declare whether some of the findings of the benchmarking report were contrary to the EU directive on equal pay. Meanwhile, local authority professional staff have reacted angrily to the decision of the benchmarking body to award no increases to the vast majority of engineers and planners.
