INO to refer working-hours dispute to state body NIB

The Irish Nurses Organisation has said it intends to refer its dispute over working hours to the National Implementation Body (NIB) - the state's top industrial relations trouble-shooting body.

The nurses have said they are furious that a national agreement to reduce their working week to 37.5 hours has not yet been implemented at acute hospitals in Louth and Meath.

They are staging a lunchtime protest at hospitals in Drogheda, Dundalk and Navan today.

Edward Mathews from the Irish Nurses Organisation has blamed management for the row.

"We will be going to the NIB, putting it to them, that a solution needs to be imposed on that management in light in their abject failure to honour their agreement, which was reached to end a national dispute," he said.