The Irish Nurses' Organisation is to apologise to SIPTU over an article in its official journal that accused hospital support staff of frequently "skiving off" work, being rude to patients and having a bad attitude.
The article, in the January edition of World of Irish Nursing, claimed that hospital porters, orderlies, cleaners and kitchen staff took "eternal breaks" and worked as if "in a permanent state of misery".
The article was described yesterday as an "outrageous and scurrilous" attack by the leader of SIPTU's health division, Mr Matt Merrigan. He said he was surprised that the INO had agreed to publish the comments, which were "unbalanced" and did not reflect reality on the ground.
A potentially-embarrassing row between the two unions was immediately defused, however, by the INO general secretary, Mr Liam Doran.
Agreeing that the article was "unbalanced and inappropriate", he said he would conduct an internal inquiry to establish how it had come to be published.
The article was a personal opinion piece, he said, which did not reflect the views of the INO.
"The INO expresses regret if the article has caused offence or hurt to fellow hospital workers and I will be conveying that to Mr Merrigan immediately."
If offence had been caused, the organisation apologised, Mr Doran added.
The article was written by Ms Moira Cassidy, a nurse and regular contributor to the journal, who is currently based in the United States. She wrote that, for hospital ancillary staff, "looking like their dog has been run over seems to be a mandatory qualification for the job".
"In many cases the most animated I've seen them is when they're skiving off in a cloud of dust on one of their eternal breaks or when they're clocking out for the day.
"And, like a cheap cologne, you can practically smell the bad attitude from 50 paces.
"I mean, take kitchen staff, for instance. Why is it a drama of epic proportions if you just ask them to make a patient a cup of tea?
"And why, oh why, are they so rude to patients who simply ask for a 'hot drop' or an extra sachet of sugar?"
Porters and orderlies were "a law unto themselves" who were always going on breaks when required for duty, she claimed.
"A break from what exactly? Sitting on their backsides, somewhere in middle earth, expending all their energy hatching various plans to avoid doing any actual work?"