Nurses are to ballot for industrial action in protest over their working conditions and staffing levels.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is also to seek an acceleration of pay restoration.
The planned campaign of industrial action by nurses will initially involve a work-to-rule and subsequently a series of one-day stoppages.
The Inmo is seeking the introduction of new incentives to recruit and retain nurses and midwives and to secure adequate staffing levels.
The general secretary of the INMO Liam Doran said if the ballot was carried, the initial work-to-rule would involve matching the level of services on offer to the number of staff available.
He said this could involve nurses taking control of their working environment by taking beds out of the hospital system or curtailing community services.
The INMO did not specify the level of financial incentives which it would be seeking.
However, asked whether it could be along the lines of the payments of up to €6,000 bring offered by some private hospitals to nurses, Mr Doran said : “Absolutely. There are a range of incentives required. And it is not just about recruiting staff. It is about retaining existing staff as well.”
Mr Doran said when the INMO spoke of incentives to encourage recruitment and retention, it was talking about monetary incentives, but also about “other ways”.
He said an imaginative approach was required.
It is understood that one option that the nursing union would like to see examined would be faster movement along the incremental scale which formed part of a recent deal involving staff at the office of the Chief State Solicitor.
Mr Doran said seven years after cuts were first introduced, there were still 3,800 fewer nurses in the health service than there were in 2009.
