Hospital consultants have agreed for the moment not to take further action in their dispute with the Department of Health over historic insurance liabilities following talks today.
The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) met in Dublin today to discuss the progress of negotiations between the department and the British-based insurer, the Medical Defence Union (MDU) over who will be responsible for paying claims relating to alleged negligence cases.
Speaking after the meeting the President of the IHCA Dr Colm Quigley said: "I am pleased that the logjam between the Department of Health and the MDU has been broken.
"We accept in good faith the commitment of both parties to work towards a resolution of this problem of uninsured claims from the past. The National Council has decided to continue to give the Department of Health and the MDU the space to conclude their detailed discussions without our taking further action."
Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick of the IHCA told ireland.comthe body believed the Department of Health and the MDU were making a "reasonable effort" to resolve the issues. However, he conceded the talks would eventually involve the "division of liability", i.e. an agreement over the payment of a monetary sum in some form or other by one of the parties.
He hoped the talks would find some resolution by the time of the next IHCA national council meeting on April 17th, he said.
The consultants, the MDU and the department have been trying to work out a plan under which historic liabilities of consultants will be insured into the future after the Department of Health introduced a new way of insuring consultants, known as 'enterprise liability', last month.
The MDU, which lost business as a result, said it could not guarantee it would be able to fund the historic liabilities of consultants insured by it in previous years. The department claims these liabilities could amount to some €400 million.
Consultants represented by the IHCA had postponed an escalation of their industrial action, under which they were refusing to attend certain meetings and to co-operate on administrative issues, to allow the talks progress.