AINE has been working as a temporary nurse since 1988. "It's really disruptive," she says of her random hours. "You can't plan anything - not even a dental appointment. You can start a week with no hours and end up with 40 - and these can be day and night shifts in the same week, which staff nurses don't ever do.

"And when I tried to get a mortgage, I was turned downs because I couldn't tell the bank what I would be earning in the year.

Unlike staff nurses, Aine often works days and nights in the same week, but almost never gets the better paid shifts for Sundays and bank holidays, which go to staff nurses.

Like many other temporary staff, she is reluctant to protest for fear of reprisals - "I wouldn't get another hour's work if" it was known I was talking to you," she tells The Irish Times.

At a very rough estimate, she says, "a good third" of the nurses where she works are there on a temporary basis.

She sees little hope - outside a satisfactory resolution of the proposed strike next Monday - of a staff job. "When, you go for a job, they could turn round and give the job to an outsider who mightn't even be as qualified as you - but wouldn't be as handy as you," she adds.

"This wouldn't happen in any other discipline in the health service, not to secretaries or to ambulancemen, radiographers - none of these is going to be temporary for 10 years.

"But what option have I?"