The establishment of a National College of Nursing and Midwifery and restructuring of the profession to give greater recognition - including pay increases - for clinical expertise are among the main recommendations of the Commission on Nursing.
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowan, is to respond to the proposals later today, after briefing the Cabinet on the report. He is expected to commit the Government to the phased implementation of the report.
He has little choice. The rapid fall in recruitment to the profession and the increasing shortage of staff nurses is already causing ward closures in many major hospitals and growing waiting lists for elective procedures.
The commission's report, due out today, will also propose the reorganisation of An Bord Altranais, the professional body for nursing. The bord has not responded adequately to the needs of nurses since it was set up over a decade ago and its role in the future is likely to be restricted to issues like fitness to practice and maintaining professional registers.
One issue that the report does not cover in any great detail is early retirement. It refers the matter back to the Government's commission on public service pensions.
However, nurses disappointment in this area will be cheered in some degree by the commission's proposals for new career structures. Traditionally the only way nurses could increase earnings was by seeking promotion to ward sister or nurse at management level.
The commission now proposes that clinical specialisation should be rewarded financially by putting recognised specialities on a grade equivalent to ward sisters. It also proposes that the new category of nurse practitioners, who will do some of the routine work now performed by junior hospital doctors, should be put on a grade equivalent to the current assistant matron grade.
There are also proposals that some of the unfinished business from the 1997 nurses dispute, including the issues of long service increments and increased allowances should be referred to the Labour Relations Commission and Labour Court for resolution. The report of the commission also proposes radical changes to the training of student nurses and covers issues such as bullying.