Thousands of psychiatric nurses have voted for industrial action over "broken promises" on a compensation scheme for staff assaulted at work.
The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) and Siptu have issued the Department of Health and Children with notice of the action within three weeks.
"We are not ruling out a complete withdrawal of labour such is the annoyance over this issue," said Seamus Murphy, Industrial Relations Officer with the PNA.
The unions, which together represent 7,000 of the State's psychiatric nurses, accused the Government of failing to implement recommendations in a 2003 task force report for a compensation scheme.
The report was carried out after union research revealed 857 psychiatric nurses were assaulted at work in 2001.