Nurses have threatened to disrupt the health service if the Government fails to address demands for pay parity with other health professionals in upcoming talks.

The country’s largest nursing and midwifery organisation yesterday criticised the government-formation deal agreed between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, claiming the document is “light” on proposals for the future of healthcare.

Thousands of nurses and nursing graduates will not return to this country unless the profession is respected and properly rewarded.

Nurses are being forced into making mistakes because of HSE cuts, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has claimed.

It will go down in nursing annals as “Song-gate”, the fatal ministerial quip that immediately killed James Reilly’s chances of escaping, relatively unscathed, from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) annual delegate conference.