Minister for Health Mary Harney has said that in the light of the changed financial circumstances for the exchequer, it is essential that the planned introduction of a 37.5-hour week for nurses from next summer is achieved on a cost-neutral basis.
Ms Harney said that there could be no question of "disguised costs" or reductions in services to patients to allow for the reduction in the working week which is scheduled to take effect in June.
She said there was a lot of work at local level in relation to the introduction of the new working hours and that it was a matter for the players at local level to be imaginative.
However she said that the introduction of a 37.5-hour week for more than 40,000 nurses working in the public health service would represent a "major challenge for everybody, not least the nurses' representative organisations".
However the Minister said that it was a challenge that could be met and that the Government was committed to meeting it.
Ms Harney said there would be a very tight budget management system in place in the health service from the start of the new year.
In light of the exchequer's changed financial circumstances, the Minister added, there could be no question of "disguised costs or reduction in services or whatever" to facilitate the introduction of the shorter working week for nurses.
Ms Harney said the underlying increase in the health service budget for 2008 was lower than it had been for quite a while.
"That means that there has to be a lot more value for money and innovation at every level, particularly in relation to staff patient ratios.
"At the moment, when you look at some hospitals and compare different situations, the level of nurses to patients varies quite considerably within the country.
"If everybody adopted the best practices within the country, we probably could or would achieve a 37.5 hour week."
The Government agreed to introduce a 37.5-hour week for nurses from next summer as part of the settlement to a seven-week campaign of industrial action earlier this year.
A special commission is to examine how the demands of nursing unions for a 35-hour week could be implemented.
This commission is being headed by Ms Justice Maureen Harding Clark.
Nursing unions agreed as part of the settlement of the dispute to take their claim for a 10.6 per cent pay increases to the benchmarking process which is examining salary levels across the public sector.
The report of the benchmarking body, which will compare pay levels in the public service to those in the private sector, is scheduled to be published in the middle of next month.