Are nurses among the lowest-paid of medical staff?

Yes. The basic salary for a staff nurse is just over Euro43,000 a year for a very stressful and at times chaotic 39-hour week.

Childminders who work with children with mental handicap and behavioural disorders - a small number of whom actually answer to a staff nurse - are paid around Euro45,500. A mid-ranked junior doctor or registrar is on a basic salary of just over Euro60,000. But given that junior doctors work an average of 72 hours in a week, most doctors would be on at least Euro100,000 once overtime pay is factored in.

Top of the medical pay league are the hospital consultants on around Euro180,000 a year for 33 hours' work a week in the public health service. Of course, most consultants can get almost twice as much again from their private practice. However, the Health Service Executive points out that, with premium payments for working Sundays, nights and evenings plus a range of allowances, the average income for a staff nurse comes to over Euro56,000 a year.

So, do they have a case?

In the rigidly hierarchical health service, pay is perceived as a critical determinant of one's status and power. It is not how much you are getting paid, but how much more or less you are getting than those above and below you. The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), which represent the 40,000 nurses threatening strike action, argue that even an unqualified childminder who reports to a staff nurse is paid around Euro5,000 more. Like the teachers' strike of 2000/2001, this dispute is as much about status as pay.

But if the nurses are displaying a little bit of snobbishness, they have for years been kept in their place, most obviously by the doctors. The nursing unions argue that nursing is now a fully-fledged profession requiring a third-level degree and that this advancement should be reflected in their salary. But the HSE points out that, in the last 10 years, nurses' pay has risen from Euro24,883 to Euro43,430 today - an increase of 75%, or over 7% per year. This is well within the norm for public servants and almost twice the increases afforded to most private-sector workers.

So what exactly are the nurses looking for?

Quite a lot. Their eight-point pay claim can be boiled down to a 10.6% pay increase to get rid of the anomaly with childcare workers, and a reduction in the working week from 39 to 35 hours. Health minister Mary Harney has costed these claims at an extra Euro1bn, against a nurses' paybill which currently stands at Euro2bn. The Labour Court has rejected all the claims, though it did offer some comfort on the 35hour working week, saying it could be on the table in return for some productivity concessions by the nurses. Harney, desperate to ward off a pay battle with the 'angels of mercy' so close to an election, grasped on to this and offered the nurses a forum to discuss non-pay issues. But there was no move on pay.

Can the nurses count on public support?

Notably, INO general secretary Liam Doran did not totally dismiss the notion of a forum. With the stakes getting higher and neither side blinking as yet, the nurses will be keen to locate their emergency exit in case they don't get the public support they are anticipating and the action peters out. In such a scenario, a dressed-up forum could fit the bill.

When the nurses last went on strike for nine days in 1999, there was strong support for the 'angels of mercy' who everybody felt were being taken for granted.

The public also admired a predominantly female workforce taking on the big boys at their own game and showing that they too could flex a bit of industrial muscle. While such regard is still there today, benchmarking and the succession of special pay rises for public servants has since sparked a resentment among the wider public who have to make do with considerably less.

And what about the national pay agreement and benchmarking?

The irony here is that while the nurses have claimed a 10.6% pay increase, an increase of around the same amount is immediately available to them under the current national agreement, Towards 2016, which they have rejected. Furthermore, the benchmarking pay report is due in June when nurses can expect a further pay hike. But like the teachers in 2000/2001, the nurses are on a solo run.

The INO and PNA claim that the generic aspect of the national partnership agreement and benchmarking cannot deal with their nurse-specific concerns.

They feel they can extract more outside the partnership tent from a government facing into a general election.

What have Harney and the government offered?

Outside of a vague promise of a forum to discuss non-pay issues, nothing. But the government is between a rock and hard place. Harney and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have been told in no uncertain terms by the rest of the public sector unions, who have accepted the national agreement and abided by procedures, that if the nurses get anything extra for threatening action, they will follow suit and collapse the partnership agreement.

It comes down to a choice between facing down the nurses within weeks of an election, or fighting pay battles on a number of fronts with teachers, gardaA-, civil servants etc. There is no real choice for the Taoiseach and he will not allow his beloved partnership to combust.

Will the other unions support the nurses?

It's hardly likely, given that the nurses have walked away from the Ictu-brokered national agreement. But the head of Ictu, Dave Begg, is likely to use his good standing with Ahern to act as an honest broker if the nurses opt for war.

Also, while the INO and the PNA represent the vast majority of nurses, Siptu has about 7,000 nurses and Impact around 1,500 staying within the partnership tent and not backing the action, raising the prospect of a nasty split among nurses.

And will the action go ahead?

The nurses have given the HSE three weeks' notice to expire next Friday but, in an unprecedented development, they have refused to say when exactly and what form that action will take and which hospital(s) will be targeted. While this gives the nurses the element of surprise, the HSE points out that it makes it impossible to put in place contingency plans to provide emergency cover. The nurses have said they will provide emergency cover but, unlike the nine-day strike in 1999, they want to be paid for it.

Most ominously, there has been no agreement so far on this potentially explosive issue.