A strike by psychiatric nurses, due to begin at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, yesterday morning, and to spread to several other hospitals on Friday, has been called off.
The move followed agreement between the Health Service Employers' Agency and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association that a task force would be set up to look at the issue of compensation for nurses injured in the course of their duty.
The Psychiatric Nurses' Association had called the strike in pursuit of its claim for compensation for members injured while on duty.
It said it had been pursuing the claim for nine years without success.
According to the PNA general secretary, Mr Des Kavanagh, the key factor in the agreement to call off the strike was that the HSEA would accept the findings of the task force.
Mr Kavanagh stressed that only a very small minority of psychiatric patients behaved in a violent way.
One such patient might be responsible for many incidents, he said.
Meanwhile, the director of Schizophrenia Ireland has said he believes that training nurses in how to handle and de-escalate potentially violent incidents could mean that many fewer nurses would be injured.
Mr John Saunders said he agreed there should be a compensation package, but evidence from abroad showed that training nurses in how to handle potential incidents could greatly reduce the number of incidents and injuries that occurred.