Nurses in one of the country's busiest hospitals have agreed to defer industrial action, following agreement reached at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

The nurses at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital are all members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. They were to begin their action on June 10 in response to management's failure to recruit additional nursing staff and address unsafe conditions in the hospital's Emergency Department (ED), as previously agreed.

However agreement has now been reached to deal with these issues. As part of this, over the last two weeks, nurses have been recruited to fill existing vacancies in the ED and these staff are set to begin work in the coming weeks.

Management has also agreed to introduce interim measures to ensure that all shifts in the ED are fully covered until such time as the new staff begin.

Management has also agreed to strengthen their efforts to recruit nurses for the entire hospital. Meanwhile, work is continuing to try to access additional community beds to reduce the impact of delayed discharges.

According to INMO industrial relations officer, Lorraine Monaghan, ‘significant progress has been made over the past two weeks to address the unsafe situation in the ED'.

"We are pleased to see that management are finally producing the necessary results. The situation will now be closely monitored and the parties will meet again in four weeks under the auspices of the LRC to review implementation of this agreement," she said.