Strike action by Ireland's public sector workers is set to widen in a campaign against the government's fiscal reforms, the trade unions' umbrella group said on Monday.

Nurses and teachers could announce strike dates in coming days after the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU), which represents around 13,000 lower-paid civil servants, served formal strike notice on Friday.

The CPSU said selective action would start next week, with some stoppages of indefinite duration.

"We have tried to exert pressure on the government without widespread disruption to services," The Irish Congress Of Trade Union's (ICTU) public services committees chairman Peter McLoone said in a statement.

"There has been no progress (towards a settlement) and the action is now going to escalate to include the withdrawal of labour."

The government reduced public sector wages as part of wider spending cuts in December and it reiterated on Sunday there was no scope for restoring the reductions that have already been made and which have made Ireland a model for tough fiscal steps.

Many Irish public sector workers are already engaged in low-key, work-to-rule protests, in some cases refusing to answer phones or reply to emails, but have stopped short of repeating a one-day strike held last November.

McLoone said teaching unions had a mandate for a number of half-day stoppages while health unions might take co-ordinated action in the form of two-hour stoppages at hospitals.

Ireland's passport office has already said it was unable to guarantee usual turnaround tim es for passport services while the country's health service executive has told patients that they may have difficulty contacting it for services.

ALL-OUT CONFRONTATION?

In contrast to Greece, where unions representing half of the country's 5 million strong workforce are due to strike on Thursday, and Britain, where 250,000 civil servants walked out of work on Monday, Ireland has a history of peaceful industrial relations.

The severity and general public acceptance of Ireland's budgetary measures have helped its financial markets to perform better than those of other heavily indebted euro zone members, especially Greece.

McLoone said the unions would only engage with the government if everything, including a reversal of December's cuts, was on the agenda, but analysts expected the action to be contained.

Theresa Reidy, specialist in public finance at University College, Cork, said the unions' real agenda, even if they did not admit it was to prevent further pay cuts in addition to a pension levy imposed last year and the reductions announced in December's budget.

"Really what the current round of action is about is setting a context where a third pay cut will not be on the cards," said Reidy. "I don't think there is an appetite on either side (government or unions) for an outright strike."

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on Sunday the state was not in a position to pay the salaries they paid last year and warned of the dangers of further industrial action.

"The big danger of an escalation of this dispute is that it will lead to an all-out confrontation," Lenihan told the Sunday Independent newspaper.

(additional reporting by Barbara Lewis, Editing by Noah Barkin)