The Government was preparing for the first all-out nurses' strike in the State, the Minister for Health said. The full range of services was likely to be affected, including acute hospital services, community services such as nursing in the home, geriatric and long-stay hospital care.

During health questions, Mr Cowen told Opposition deputies that the Department was identifying all the high-risk areas within the service. He insisted that there was no possibility of improving on the terms of the Labour Court finding.

Fine Gael's health spokesman, Mr Alan Shatter called on the Minister to accept that nurses' pay should "be related to pay scales of other people working in the medical and treatment areas". Mr Shatter said nurses were locked into a relativity system dating back between 20 and 20 years and a new system was necessary.

Mr Cowen said, however, that Mr Shatter was "giving false hope to people by suggesting there is a means by which issues can be resolved without any reference to the pay determination systems in existence". The Minister said the Government had gone to independent arbitration and would honour the Labour Court recommendation.

"The deputy will have to face some realities. Is he in favour of independent arbitration? That is the simple question. All other issues are subjective matters."

Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said, however, that "where there is a rejection by 95 per cent of nurses, no matter how good the system is, it simply is not good enough when we are now facing a nurses' strike for the first time".

A deal would have to be struck, she said. "The only question is if the deal will be struck before the nurses go out on strike or after." The Minister replied however that the Government position was clear and he asked again if the Opposition parties were in favour of independent arbitration. It was politically dishonest, he claimed, for deputies on the one hand to "hold a brief for the nurses on this matter and on the other hand remain silent on the question of whether social partnership should be upheld".

He called on "all nurses to reflect and consider the full implications before voting for strike action. Not only would such action be in direct breach of the industrial peace clause of Partnership 2000, it would also endanger the entire national partnership approach which has served the country so well and above all it would inflict considerable hardship on patients and their families. "