A six-month strike at a Co Longford nursing home has ended after staff accepted a settlement recommended by the Rights Commissioner.
Workers in Our Lady's Manor Nursing Home in Edgeworthstown will now return to work over the next few weeks.
More than 40 striking workers voted last Friday to accept 23 voluntary redundancies. The settlement will see wages restored to pre-strike levels, a sick pay scheme reinstated and an optional PRSA pension plan introduced.
Sitpu members went on strike at the end of May following a dispute with new owners Noel John McGivney and Sarah Ann McGivney over wage reductions and work practices.
The intervention by the Rights Commissioner John Walsh last month followed a breakdown in communications between the parties.
A Siptu spokesman said it was difficult for patients because "they didn't have the care of people who looked after them for 20 years". Temporary replacement workers stepped in during the strike.
Sitpu branch manager Sean Nolan said: "This agreement was accepted by the huge majority of Siptu members and finally brings this difficult and protracted dispute to an end. The result is a credit to the courage and tenacity of the nursing home workers who spent months out on pickets in the wind and the rain.
The owners were unavailable for comment.