A decision by members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) to end their two-month-old industrial action and resume normal working practices has been greeted with relief by a variety of interests. Foremost of these have been hospital patients and those waiting in queues for elective surgery.
They have been followed by the Government, the National Implementation Body (NIB) and the Health Service Executive (HSE) which invested considerable time and ingenuity in devising settlement proposals that preserved the benchmarking process.
The narrow majority in favour of ending the dispute - 54 per cent, compared to 46 per cent who wished to continue it - reflected the militancy of those nurses who pursued claims for higher pay and shorter working hours when they had been rejected by the Labour Court. The settlement will cause tensions within the INO but the HSE is likely to become the major target of resentment.
Sentiment has no place in a strike situation. But it fuelled this one. The harsh reality is that this dispute was ill-judged. It pursued a double claim simultaneously, challenged the integrity of the social partnership agreement and was predicated on a belief that, in an election situation, the Government would cave in. But the Government, employers and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions were committed to established industrial procedures and benchmarking. Faced by this, the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) struggled to make an impact.
Concessions were extracted from the HSE in terms of a reduction in working hours by next June, provided that can be done on a cost-neutral basis. Consideration will also be given to reducing the working week to 35 hours. But the 10.6 per cent pay claim has been referred to the benchmarking process. And nurses will receive a deferred pay increase for endorsing social partnership.
The general public has been very supportive of nurses and it appreciates the efforts they made to minimise the impact of the dispute on patients. That goodwill was being threatened, however, as hospital services came under pressure. A decision by the HSE to cut nurses' pay if the dispute continued brought matters to a head. Before the situation spiralled out of control, driven by threatened pay cuts and extended work stoppages, the NIB intervened with new settlement proposals. And, happily, they have been accepted. The stage has now been set for a new procedural phase that will address concerns that have rankled with nurses for years. But with other interest groups, ranging from teachers to gardaí to health workers, preparing to piggyback on any concessions made, progress is likely to be slow and difficult.