Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has estimated the nursing unions' wage claim would cost the exchequer up to €1 billion and "nobody can negotiate on that basis".
He told the Dáil, however, that a 10 per cent pay increase was available to the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) under the benchmarking process, and the Government was "fully prepared" to engage in discussions on issues like the length of the working week.
Questioned by Labour leader Pat Rabbitte about whether he was saying that benchmarking was the only way forward to resolve the nurses' dispute, Mr Ahern said the Labour Court had recommended that "over and above the matter of pay which was properly covered in Towards 2016 and must be dealt with through benchmarking, engagement on a broad basis should be conducted to enable issues such as the length of the working week to be addressed on a sustainable basis. I want to emphasise that the Government is fully prepared to engage in those discussions."
Mr Ahern said "the INO and the PNA have put forward a lengthy number of claims which more recently seem to boil down to two issues. Both of those issues are extremely costly on the exchequer. With their knock-on effect, the cost would range between €500 million and €1 billion. Deputy Rabbitte would accept that nobody can negotiate on that basis."
However, the Government was also committed to "ensuring that nurses are paid properly and fairly for their work. We recognise that there are issues of concern to nurses, and that they perceive that there are significant inequities in their current position."
The nurses had highlighted those issues. "I have acknowledged, as has the Minister, that these problems must be addressed. How they are addressed is the only issue in contention."
He denied there had been criticism of the Minister for Health by Fianna Fáil backbenchers.
Claiming developers were driving nurses to industrial action because they could not afford to live in Dublin and some other cities, Mr Rabbitte asked about the "Government's attitude towards providing a Dublin allowance".
Mr Ahern said he had met the unions and "they did not ask me to tailor future pay increases based on house prices around Ireland, for example giving greater increases where house prices are higher, so we should stop trying to raise such nonsense".
Earlier he told Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny that a Cat scanner for Louth County Hospital in Dundalk would be fully installed by next month.
Mr Kenny claimed, following press reports, that a scanner, delivered in November, was in boxes in the hospital's laundry room. He claimed the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs had promised before the 2002 general election that a Cat scanner would be delivered to hospitals in Dundalk and Monaghan. "Is this the delivery of the world-class health service?"
Mr Ahern said the Government was spending €10 million on the Louth hospital, including the scanner. "It requires work totalling approximately €700,000 before installation. The work involving an electrical upgrade is under way, and the scanner will be fully installed next month."
