HOSPITAL CONSULTANTS have signed up to the terms of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform.
The move by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) to endorse the agreement at a meeting on Saturday, could have significant implications for any decision by the Government or a future administration to place a cap on top-level pay in the public service while the deal remains in place.
Hospital consultants are the largest group of top earners on the State payroll.
In general, consultants who receive the largest amounts are those with a Type A contract under which they work exclusively for public hospitals. They earn an average of €188,200. Consultants with additional academic responsibilities earn more but consultants with private-practice rights earn less money. In addition many consultants receive payments for on-call availability and call-outs after hours.
The Government last year introduced a 15 per cent cut in consultants’ pay while it also held off on sanctioning the final part of an increase agreed for the implementation of a new contract in 2008.
However, under the terms of the Croke Park deal pay cannot be reduced further until 2014. This means that any future salary cap could not be lower than existing rates.
Fine Gael last week said that there should be a salary cap of €200,000 while Sinn Féin has said this cap should be €100,000.
The Croke Park agreement was ratified by the Public Service Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in the summer. However, the IHCA is not affiliated to ICTU.
The association, which represents about 1,800 consultants, said yesterday it had been invited by the HSE in mid-October to set out its position in relation to the Croke Park deal. The Irish Medical Organisation, which also represents consultants as well as GPs and other doctors, has already backed the deal. In return for the guarantees on no pay cuts and no compulsory redundancies, staff have agreed to co-operate with widespread reform measures.
In the health sector, management is seeking agreements on redeployment as well as the introduction of rostering of staff over a longer core day and on any five out of seven days. It is unclear as yet whether the HSE will seek to introduce weekend rostering for consultants.
The IHCA said the existing contract provides for structured weekend work but that this had not been implemented.
Meanwhile the HSE is considering offering two-year contracts to junior doctors in a bid to make the growing number of vacant posts here for such medics more attractive to potential candidates.
It is also looking at offering money to help with the cost of visas, medical council registration and accommodation to foreign doctors coming to State to fill the vacancies.
The initiatives, outlined to a meeting of the HSE board last week, come in the wake of grave concerns being expressed in hospitals across the country about a significant fall in the number of applications for junior doctor posts which fall vacant in January.
At present junior doctors or nonconsultant hospital doctors rotate posts every six months. If they were offered longer contacts, under which they would be attached to one of the HSE’s four regions for two years – the task of filling thousands of jobs every six months would be dispensed with and the posts might prove more attractive to foreign doctors coming to work here, the HSE believes.