The 1997 nurses' dispute could be reactivated because of the failure of the Commission on Public Service Pensions to recommend early retirement for the profession.
The general secretary of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Mr Liam Doran, is seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister for Finance to discuss the implications of the review.
Nurses called off a strike in the health services in 1997 on the basis that their case for early retirement would receive priority consideration. In the event it was referred to the commission which, far from endorsing the nurses' claim, has recommended increasing public service retirement ages.
Yesterday Mr Doran described the failure of the CPSP to concede retirement for general nurses at 55, the age at which psychiatric nurses can retire, as perpetuating "a glaring inequality" in the profession.
The outcome of discussions with the Department of Finance on early retirement could fundamentally affect the attitude of the nursing unions to the current national agreement. Mr Doran is expected to report back to his executive later this month on progress in the talks.
At present psychiatric nurses retire at 55 with a full pension, provided they have 30 years' service. All other nurses retire at 65 and must have 40 years' service for a full pension. A pilot scheme introduced as part of the settlement of the 1997 dispute, which allowed 600 nurses to retire at 60, failed to attract sufficient applicants because very few nurses could meet the service criteria.
Mr Doran said yesterday he was "bitterly disappointed" at the outcome of the CPSP report. "At practically every branch meeting I attended over the past three years the question of early retirement has been raised," he said.
"The pensions issue was central to the nurses' claim. The anomaly in the treatment of psychiatric nurses and other nurses is all the more glaring now because so many acute psychiatric units have been located in general hospitals.
"We cannot have a situation where a nurse in one ward is able to retire at 55 and a nurse in another ward cannot."