Health Service Executive (HSE) management and representatives of the country's 2,144 public hospital consultants are due to meet again today over terms of a new consultants' contract.
The sides met over three days last week in Co Kildare, but it is expected that this week's negotiations could last another three days.
Pay, private practice rights and hours of work are on the agenda in the talks, which the Health Service Executive Employers Agency has warned represent the last chance for agreement.
A new contract for hospital consultants is one of the key elements of the Government's healthcare reforms, but the talks have been hit by rows, delays and walk-outs for more than three years.
HSE management is hoping to restrict the practice of consultants treating private patients in the public hospitals in which they work to fulfil an obligation made 15 years ago that all patients would be seen by a consultant.
The independent chairman of the talks, Mark Connaughton SC, has held meetings with the HSE-Employers Agency and with the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association over recent weeks.
The Government is seeking to employ about 1,600 more hospital consultants on revised terms and conditions.
If no agreement is reached at the talks, it is believed the Government will press ahead with its plans to unilaterally appoint new consultants on revised terms and conditions.
Any such move may lead to industrial action by senior doctors in hospitals.