THE Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, has warned the State's 26,000 nurses that that they are "making a gross error of judgment" if they think the Government can offer them more than the £50 million pay package rejected last week.
Mr Quinn made his comments after addressing a SIPTU conference in Dublin at the weekend. "I think management has gone as far as it can go," he said.
The offer was "more than reasonable. We have pushed interpretation of the PCW (Programme for Competitiveness and Work) to its very limit. If any component of the Nursing Alliance thinks there is any more money available they are making a gross error of judgment".
Despite the healthy state of public finances, he pointed out that there had been heavy outgoings as well, due to factors like the BSE crisis and public sector pay drift. "It would be the wrong signal to send that there is any more money available."
Later today the Nursing Alliance, comprising the four nursing unions, is to meet senior Irish Congress of Trade Union officials to discuss the situation. They are expected to release details of their ballots this morning.
All four unions had recommended acceptance of the latest offer. It is understood that the bulk of the votes for rejection came from the largest nursing union, the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO). With two thirds of all nurses, its members are thought to have voted by about 60 per cent to 40 per cent for rejection.
IMPACT members are also understood to have voted, by a narrow margin, for rejection. The other two unions, SIPTU and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), voted for the offer.
The last offer, worth nearly £40 million, was rejected by an eight to one majority by all the unions. The narrower defeat this time could pose problems for the INO.
The next logical step is to ballot members for industrial action but, under the INO constitution, a strike ballot requires a two thirds majority. This may prove difficult to achieve when less than two thirds rejected the latest offer.
A further problem is that there appears to be nowhere left to go in negotiations, this side of the picket lines. The final terms of the rejected offer were reached by a special adjudication body set up by the Government.
Technically SIPTU and the PNA could decide to accept the offer. But they are unlikely to leave the Nursing Alliance, which has succeeded in bringing the value of the Government offer up from £10 million last January to "the present £50 million.
Staff nurses with long service, ward sisters and temporary nurses are the main beneficiaries of the offer, while there was little in it for younger staff nurses, nurse tutors and some management grades.
The only discernible pattern in the voting is on a union basis. The Psychiatric Nurses Association and SIPTU (which has a large number of psychiatric nurses among its nurse members) were the only unions to accept the deal.
Ironically, psychiatric nurses have a much longer record of trade union organisation and militancy than general nurses.
The one concession that might help the situation would be the introduction of a comprehensive early retirement scheme. But the cost of follow on claims from thousands of other public sector workers would be enormous.
Time to resolve the dispute is also running out. A successor to the Programme for Competitiveness and Work is supposed to be agreed by November 26th.
The Department of Finance has warned public sector unions that, if they do not conclude restructuring deals in the current financial year, it will be difficult to make any provision for backdating pay rises in next year's Budget.
Public sector pay is met out of current expenditure. Teachers and junior civil servants have still to conclude agreements, as well as nurses. The extra cost to the Exchequer of all these deals is at least £150 million. If those costs are carried into 1997 an extra £300 million will have to be found by the Exchequer.
To make things worse, 1997 is a base year for EMU qualification and employer organisations are opposed to large increases in public expenditure.