The Minister for Health and Children has warned nurses that their pay claim cannot be isolated from public service pay generally.
Mr Cowen told delegates to the Irish Nurses' organisation in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, yesterday that it had proved impossible to isolate their £85 million Labour Court settlement in 1997, "which had a major impact on subsequent pay developments in the rest of the public service.
"This impact is still being felt in terms of the reaction it has provoked among those groups who settled early under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work," he said, and it now threatened the success of a national programme to succeed Partnership 2000. "We simply have to find a new and better way of dealing with public service pay."
The Labour Court was trying to resolve the dispute "and it is desirable that nothing is said or done by either side to undermine the efforts of the court. I have to say that the threats of strike action if the Labour Court does not produce particular recommendations on the claims, are not helpful. It is for the court alone to decide on the merits or otherwise of the claims."
Any government, "irrespective of its composition, needs the co-operation and understanding of both the public and private sectors in trying to ensure that major pay drifts do not become a factor in seriously reducing economic growth and social development."
Mr Cowen's speech was greeted by muted applause and delegates laughed derisively at his claim that "there continues to be a high level of interest among young people in general nursing as a career".
The INO president, Ms Anne Cody, received a standing ovation when she told Mr Cowen the INO "has not come this far, through negotiation, adjudication, a Commission on Nursing report and Labour Court intervention to give up now". The pay issue had over shadowed everything the organisation had done for the past year.
"I am acutely aware that individual members, branches and sections are increasingly disenchanted at the failure to bring this whole lengthy process, now spanning 31/2 years, to a successful conclusion." She told Mr Cowen that nurses were no longer prepared to remain "the lowest-paid professional grade in the Irish health service", with the longest working week and the shortest annual leave of anyone in the officer grades.
The INO general secretary, Mr Liam Doran, resisted demands from delegates for an early summer strike. Speaker after speaker demanded action before the local authority and EU elections take place next month.
He said the Labour Court had invited health service management to further talks on May 20th and the nursing unions to talks on May 25th and there could be further clarifications required before the court issued its recommendation.
"We do not expect to get a piece of paper from the Labour Court, good, bad or indifferent, for three to four weeks after that."
He promised delegates that "at the end of the day, the court will not decide the outcome, you will decide it by a ballot". The INO would not short-circuit things, but neither would it "concede an inch" of the nurses' claim.
No one could dispute that nurses were paid £4,000 to £5,000 a year less than comparable grades in the health services, worked five hours a week longer and had substantially shorter holidays, he said. Management's main objection to meeting the nurses' demands seemed to be the cost. There were 27,500 nurses in the State, he said; a 1 per cent increase to nurses cost £7 million, while the same increase to radiographers would cost just £164,000.