The Irish Nurses' Organisation has decided on "nationwide industrial action immediately" if outstanding pay claims are not dealt with to members' satisfaction.
Some 200 delegates at a special conference voted unanimously to support a strategy which will require all 24,000 INO members to go into dispute should any section reject the outcome of current Labour Court talks.
The organisation has also decided to take an equality case against the Government over early retirement. It is claiming that general nurses, who are mainly women, have been discriminated against visa-vis the Garda, prison officers and psychiatric nurses, predominantly male groups who can retire at 55.
The previous government promised quick action on early retirement as part of a settlement to the 1997 nurses' dispute. However, it has been referred to the public service pensions commission. The INO deputy general secretary, Ms Lenore Mr kwicka, said the commission report was not expected to recommend early retirement when it reported at the end of the year.
Earlier, delegates endorsed a claim for senior ward sisters to receive £31,000 a year at the top of their scale, an increase of £6,400 on their present salary, and six more annual leave days.
The other features of the claim are a long-service increment for staff nurses, which would push the top of their salary scale up from £22,000 to £25,000 after 22 years' service, and an increase in the qualifications allowance from £347 a year to 10 per cent of basic salary.
A motion from the floor calling for even larger increases for ward sisters was only narrowly defeated. An amendment seeking two long-service increments for sisters was passed by a large majority although it had not been endorsed by the executive.
The INO, which begins talks at the Labour Court this morning, is also seeking significant increases for junior ward sisters and for a new grade of clinical nurse manager. The latter would be responsible for large operational units, such as the accident and emergency units of major acute hospitals. The INO wants their pay to be at least 25 per cent higher than the average earnings of senior staff nurses.
The INO stance poses a challenge to the Government which has warned the nursing unions that it will not tolerate "leapfrogging claims" which undermine public service pay policy.
Ms Helen Buckley, of the Kildare branch, was applauded when she said she was "fed up of Government Ministers seeing frogs leaping all over the place. They must be on recreational drugs."
Ms Maureen Magee, of the paediatric nurses section, was one of several delegates who said she resented the efforts of the Government to scapegoat nurses and accuse them of jeopardising tax cuts by their pay claim. The Government had the money.
The cost of meeting the nurses' claims could be increased further by a proposal to introduce regular overtime payments for nurses. This move is aimed at keeping wards open which are currently closed because of a staff nurse shortage.