High-level talks are expected to take place next week to try to resolve the three-week-old nurses' dispute, which the Health Service Executive (HSE) has claimed is costing it up to €2 million a week.
The National Implementation Body - the main trouble-shooting mechanism under the social partnership process - is expected to call all sides back to talks early in the week.
The move is being planned after comments by the general secretary of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Liam Doran, yesterday, that he would be prepared to return to talks without being given a date for the implementation of a 35-hour working week for nurses.
This is regarded as a significant step forward by health service employers as only last week Mr Doran was insisting that a date for a 35-hour week and a method to move forward the nurses' claim for a 10.6 per cent pay rise, on an interim basis if necessary, would be required before talks.
Over 40,000 nurses who are members of the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) are involved in the dispute. Yesterday they announced plans for a major escalation of industrial action with more than 50 hospitals and mental health services due to be hit with one-hour work stoppages over two days next week. However, if there was a promise of meaningful negotiations the escalation would be called off, Mr Doran said.
He said once talks began, the issue of a date for a 35-hour week for nurses, as well as their pay claim, would have to be quickly on the table for discussion.
HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm said if the precondition of a date for the introduction of a 35-hour week for nurses disappeared that would be significant.
"But bringing us all back into the NIB if the first issue on the table is 'give us a date for the 35-hour week' is not going to be very fruitful or indeed may present a false dawn for the public".
Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg, who is a member of the National Implementation Body, said last night he hoped there would be talks next week but none were arranged yet. "On the exploratory contact I've had with all sides, I think people are anxious enough to find some way to resolve it," he said. But his own view was that Mr Doran's position hadn't radically altered.
In the meantime, a work-to-rule by INO and PNA members continues in all hospitals during which they are refusing to deal with non-essential phone calls or to carry out clerical or IT duties.
Prof Drumm told a press briefing in Dublin that the industrial action was costing the HSE up to €2 million a week for extra staff and overtime. He said this would mean all planned services for the year could not be provided.
He also said the pay of nurses on the work-to-rule, now "working at 70 to 80 per cent" of capacity, may have to be cut.
Prof Drumm rejected INO and PNA claims that patients were not being affected. "There is no getting away from the fact that it is compromising care and it really is misleading, I think, to try and project otherwise," he said.