Talks On Nurses’ Dispute Adjourned

Talks on the nurses’ dispute being held at Government Buildings have been adjorned until Tuesday. Efforts to end the four-week old dispute over pay and a shorter working week had been ongoing since mid afternoon under the auspices of the National Implementation body.

Going into the negotiations, Des Kavanagh of the Psychiatric Nurses Association said the next hour or so would determine if there was a basis for continuing discussions. He described the talks as now being down to the wire.

Brendan Mulligan of the HSE-Employers Agency said that the NIB had received written responses from the parties on the pay and hours issues and would consider these.

Nursing unions are pressing for a reduction in their working week from 39 hours to 35, and are demanding a 10.6% pay rise.

Talks broke off after both parties submitted proposals on the pay claim, while tentative progress is said to have been made on the issue of a reduced working week.