The failure of hospital consultants to co-operate with the Department of Health is delaying the introduction of reduced working hours for doctors, Department officials have told an Oireachtas committee.
The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) had refused to engage in negotiations with the Department on the implementation of the EU working time directive while the row over medical indemnity was ongoing, Mr Bernard Carey, personnel director with the Department, said.
Any progress that could be made on introducing the directive would be "extremely limited" without negotiation with the doctors.
"Unfortunately the ICHA are not co-operating with us at present. Because of the legal indemnity issue they are not formally engaging with national groups," Mr Carey told the Oireachtas Health Committee.
The dispute between the consultants, the Government and the UK-based medical indemnity company, the Medical Defence Union (MDU), centres on who should pay for historic liabilities arising from malpractice cases taken against doctors before the introduction of a new State indemnity scheme last February.
The working time directive for doctors was introduced last July, but in September the EU Commission proposed a number of amendments, yet to be discussed with the doctors. One suggests that time spent on call but inactive should not count as working time.
The Department broadly welcomed this amendment, which was "very significant in the medical context", Mr Carey said.
He hoped progress on the directive negotiations would improve as soon as possible, so that doctors could begin to reap the benefits of the improved working conditions to which they were entitled.
