Nursing has had more peaks and troughs than a bar of Toblerone

THE received wisdom is that any minister who goes up against nurses is a lone lemming, headed over a cliff.

That for Mary Harney to talk about nurses shovelling cups of tea into themselves at regular intervals was an own-goal. That for the INO to vote no confidence is a deadly strike against her.

Nurses are perceived as being — in image terms — impregnable. Everybody loves them. Saying anything against them is akin to stabbing Bambi in the gizzard.