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NURSES are set to walk out across Ireland today for only the second national strike in 100 years after last-ditch talks failed to resolve the dispute over pay and staff shortages.
Ireland’s Labour Court convened eight hours of negotiations which ended shortly after midnight yesterday but failed to break the deadlock with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Phil Ni Sheaghdha warning that the strike would go ahead.
Nearly 40,000 nurses are expected to join today’s 24-hour stoppage and psychiatric nurses are set to take action from tomorrow, with their union the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) calling an overtime ban.
Unions are demanding pay parity with other graduate-entry health professionals such as physiotherapists, claiming that they are paid up to €7,000 (£6,000) less a year.
They warn that a pay boost is crucial in addressing a recruitment and retention crisis among nurses in the Irish health service.
Ms Sheaghdha previously warned that nurses were being forced into taking action due to the government’s “haphazard approach” to staffing with low pay leading to “staff shortages, compromising safe care.”
