"UP UNTIL last Sunday evening none of us thought it would come down to this. We were bitterly disappointed no offer was made.

This is not of our making. All we want is to be treated the same as all other medical staff.

"Every colleague I work alongside has a shorter working week than me. And we have said that we will be flexible and provide an improved service with expanded duties for the 35-hour week but they still won't budge.

Other medical staff, including senior managers, have got pay rises outside of benchmarking.

Nurses have no trust in the benchmarking process.

"The HSE's stories of patients suffering as a result of the work-torule is just scaremongering and is slightly sinister. Not answering a phone won't harm a patient. All calls are screened and if it has to do with direct patient care a nurse will take the call. This is working well in Killarney, but some locations are better than others.

We have inconvenienced management, but we have not compromised patient care.

"I probably won't benefit from any settlement. This dispute is designed to create acceptable working conditions to keep Irish trained nurses in the country. It costs 80,000 to train a nurse, yet most of them are going abroad to better conditions. We need them here.

"Politically, it has been very quiet so far. We have had some support from Fianna Fail backbenchers and opposition TDs but we haven't seen anything yet.

Once the election is called we will see what impact we can have. This needs to be resolved before it gets worse. We are determined and we are not going away."