The 40,000 nurses who have been engaged in work-to-rule for over four weeks, may now lose 13.5 per cent of their pay if new proposals to be considered by the Health Service Executive.
The figure comes from the pay increase nurses received under the Sustaining Progress national agreement. The deduction is just one of the options set out in a paper to be considered by the HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm.
Informed sources said draft letters instructing regional managers to begin "docking" pay from members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) had already been drawn up in advance of the decision by Prof Drumm on the plan.
As part of the work-to-rule nurses have been refusing to answer non-essential telephone calls or carry out clerical, administrative or IT duties.
A spokeswoman for the HSE told the Irish Times that it was "considering" the "docking" of the pay, while the Department of Health said last night that the HSE had warned that it may have to make deductions from nurses' pay.
It is understood that if Prof Drumm accepts the proposals on Tuesday, nurses would be given one week to end the work-to-rule, before the pay deductions would come into force.
INO general secretary Liam Doran said last night that any move to deduct pay from nurses would lead to an immediate change in the tone and tenor of the dispute. He said it would end all goodwill between nurses and management and "open a sore that would not heal for a long time".
5,000 nurses and midwives took part in hour-long work stoppages at a number of hospitals around the country yesterday, according to the INO and PNA.
The campaign is to escalate next week with a series of two and three-hour stoppages planned.
More than 1,500 hospital appointments and procedures have been cancelled because of the escalation in the nurses' dispute, the HSE said last night, adding that it had "serious concerns about the risk to patient safety".
The industrial action will be reviewed by the INO at a special conference on Thursday where a further escalation, including an overtime ban, may be considered.