The Government has decided to enter talks with the nursing unions on pay. The decision taken yesterday evening reverses the Cabinet decision of September 16th and was made after soundings were taken with senior members of the trade union movement.
The move, which is understood to have been initiated by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, should avert any immediate confrontation between the Government and the State's 30,000 nurses over public sector pay.
However, the decision to permit health service managers to attend talks at the Labour Relations Commission and Labour Court, as requested by the Nursing Alliance of trade unions, does not preclude the possibility of a dispute further down the road, if either side refuses to accept the outcome of the mediation process.
Senior trade unionists are understood to have told Mr Ahern and his advisers that they had no difficulty with the Government outlining its approach to pay negotiations with the nurses, but that a refusal to allow the dispute to go to the Labour Relations Commission and Labour Court would cause irreparable damage to social partnership.
Last night's decision effectively overrides that taken by the Cabinet on September 16th. Mr Ahern was on a State visit to China at the time and, in his absence, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, insisted that a strong signal be sent out to the nurses that negotiations on the pay elements of the report of the Commission on Nursing would have to be deferred.
According to one senior political source, he "hijacked" the debate on the nurses' dispute. The speech by the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, later that day, and comments by the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, in Cork on Thursday, reinforced the perception among trade unionists that the Government wanted a public service pay battle.
It generated anger not just among the nurses, but the wider public service, although other union leaders refrained from the war of words of the past 10 days.
Last night, a Government spokesman moved to clarify the situation by saying there had been widespread misunderstanding of the position. "When the report of the Commission on Nursing was presented to the Minister for Health, he indicated that the Government was accepting the broad thrust of the report and that he wished to talk to the nursing unions about a partnership approach to its implementation," the spokesman said.
"As an indication of his commitment to the report the Minister also announced an action plan aimed at the implementation of its key recommendations."
He added: "The Government position on the pay issues arising from the report is that these can be dealt with in a way that is consistent with the direction set down in the Taoiseach's address to the social partners last July.
"The Government remains of the view that nurses' pay cannot be divorced from public service pay policy generally. The Government believes that to attempt to deal with the pay issues in any other context would run the substantial risk of leading towards a destabilising return of `leap-frogging' special increases to restore relativities. The Government certainly will not accept any such return."
However, the Government had "decided that if health service managers are invited to attend the LRC or the Labour Court they should accept the invitation. In that event, they will state clearly the Government position on the pay issues arising from the report of the Commission on Nursing as outlined above."