Settling of nurses’ dispute carries price for Government

Good morning.

And so, just as everyone said it would be, the nurses’ dispute was settled in the end. The signs were on since the weekend when union negotiators and mandarins from the Department of Public Expenditure camped at the Labour Court for three long days and nights.

Yesterday morning, the court said it would hold a formal hearing - a sign it had heard enough to believe a deal was on. The choreography was obvious and the outcome inevitable by then. The recommendation was issued before teatime; by the time the six o’clock news had finished, the Government had welcomed it, and the nurses’ union had called off the strike.

The court’s intervention has avoided the three-day stoppage due to start this morning - an action that would, all sides agree, have brought the health service to a virtual standstill.

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Even as it is, tens of thousands of appointments have been cancelled, though Minister for Health Simon Harris last night promised to “catch up” on them.

The ending of the strike is good news for the Government. But it has come at a price. It would be wrong to say that Paschal Donohoe caved in under the pressure of the strike. But he did concede a pay increase to nurses - on average about 2.5 per cent, or €1,200 each, as we report today - when the Government has said for months the pay deal could not be reopened.

And yet if the Government has moved, the nurses have ended up with a lot less - up front, anyway - than they sought.

So what happens now? Well, for a start RTÉ’s Ingrid Miley and Martin Wall of this parish can return to the bosom of their families. The Cabinet will be briefed on and accept the terms of the deal this morning, and the nurses’ union will start preparing for a ballot of its members to secure their agreement.

But it’s the reaction of other unions that will be crucial over the coming days. Will they pile in with their own demands? How many more special cases will there be? The costs of the settlement, as we reveal today, are in fact modest enough. But the signal the settlement sends out - that deals can be done - may well serve to encourager les autres. That is the real fear in Government Buildings now.

Our front page story is here, further reports are here and analysis is here.

The Independent is less sanguine. It says the deal "opens the door" to a "public pay free-for-all".

Brexit: Is May ’running down the clock’?

The UK Labour spokesman on Brexit, Keir Starmer, was in Dublin yesterday for a series of meetings with political, business and trade union leaders.

Starmer warned Theresa May is "running down the clock" with the intention of presenting MPs with the choice of her Brexit deal or exiting without a deal.

This is plausible, but there’s a missing bit: her efforts to seek a concession on the backstop. That’s where Dublin might get involved, like it or not.

In Brussels, the Brexit secretary (number three, do keep up) Stephen Barclay met Michel Barnier for dinner at the British embassy and discussions about British ideas on the backstop.

Although proposals have not yet been presented, both sides are "trying to find a way forward", as they say. Paddy Smyth reports.

Today, Mrs May will update the House of Commons, and MPs are due to debate - and maybe vote - on Brexit this Thursday. But the British government wants to postpone the “meaningful vote” until the end of the month.

Starmer’s suspicion that she is just running down the clock isn’t contradicted by any of this.

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The Cabinet meets this morning where Ministers will discuss proposals to find the money for the children's hospital overruns, not by cancelling or postponing any projects but, it appears, by not cancelling or postponing them. No doubt Ministers will be duly impressed by this impressive fiscal conjuring trick.

Ministers will also be briefed on the proposed nurses’ settlement.

The Dáil has Leaders’ and Taoiseach’s questions, and also parliamentary orals with Minister for Transport Shane Ross. Always worth watching the Healy-Raes torment him and Ross imperiously dismiss them.

Simon Harris is due to apologise for misleading the Dáil over the children’s hospital costs.

Busy day at the committees with Brexit preparedness in the education sector and sparks likely at the defence committee, which discusses Ireland’s involvement in European Defence Agency Projects.

Michael D is in Liverpool, where he will meet the Prince of Wales.

And that's it for the day. Remember today is Darwin Day - the celebration of the birthday of Charles Darwin (1809), whose theory of evolution underpins our understanding of the natural world. Yesterday no less an authority than the Daily Mirror reported a third of British people don't believe the theory. Seven per cent of respondents to the poll thought Darwin wrote Dan Brown's blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code, while 13 per cent confused him with Oliver Twist author Charles Dickens. Hmmmm. No Brexit jokes, please. But do have a severely fruity day.