Minister for Health Simon Harris has been warned that he needs to "sit-up and take notice" of nurses, ahead of a planned 24-hour strike at the end of the month.
Sinn Féin's health spokeswoman Louise O'Reilly said the dispute will only be resolved when "serious and meaningful" talks take place.
She said the 95% support by members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation for industrial action was a "very, very loud and clear message to the Government" that it needs to "stop trying to shift the blame for their own failures onto the healthcare professionals".
The Government has repeatedly insisted that it cannot concede the demand for a 12% pay increase, as it would cost around €300m and trigger knock-on claims from other public servants.
However, Deputy O'Reilly argued: "We have seen accommodation made in the scope of the [pay] agreement previously for other grades. It's more than possible".
The Dublin Fingal TD also accused Mr Harris of being "complicit in the crisis".
Ms O'Reilly said: "He's ignored the nurses. He's dismissed their claims... It's not going to work."
She said the planned industrial action was just another example of Government failure in managing the health service.
She added: "There's 565 people on trolleys. They didn't get there by accident. They got there because of Government policy.
"Government policy needs to change. They need to start talking to healthcare professionals now".
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach has said he is "saddened" that nurses have voted in favour of strike action on a weekday.
Speaking to reporters in Ethiopia, Leo Varadkar said he respects the decision to carry out a strike, but added he was "saddened that perhaps the opportunity wasn’t taken to do so on a weekend, rather than a week day".
He said that as a result of the strike taking place on a Wednesday, thousands of operations and clinic appointments will be cancelled.
Mr Varadkar said the Government will do everything it can to avoid a strike, "but ultimately it is a decision by the unions to go on strike".
"We will of course engage with the unions through the normal mechanisms, the Workplace Relations Commission and possibly the Labour Court," he said.
Mr Varadkar said that a pay deal with all public servants is already in place, which provides for five different pay increases in 2019.
He said that there is a limit to what the Government can afford in terms of more pay for public servants.
"The difficulty with doing a special deal for any one aspect of the civil service is that every other group would want the same, and that could run into hundreds of millions of euro - money we don’t have at the moment," he said.
The INMO confirmed yesterday that a 24-hour strike will take place on 30 January.
If the dispute is not resolved, there will be further 24-hour strikes on 5 and 7 February, and then on the 12, 13 and 14 February.
The INMO argues that there is a serious shortage of nurses across the health service, which is affecting both patients and staff.
