The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association has withdrawn from talks over new contracts in protest at Minister for Health Mary Harney's decision to push ahead with recruiting 50 new consultants prior to agreement.
In a statement today, the IHCA said Ms Harney's decision breaks the terms under which the talks resumed last October namely "that all parties would refrain from taking any action outside the terms of the current consultants' contract".
Minister Harney last week announced plans to advertise the new posts while consultants' contracts were being renegotiated.
The Government has set a deadline of tomorrow to end the talks. Ms Harney has said she intends to advertise 50 of 350 new consultants' posts once the deadline had passed. The IHCA has advised its members not to co-operate in any way with the filling of the posts.
Ms Harney said tonight: "The public interest requires that the hiring process needs to begin now. It can often take significant time to hire consultants. It cannot be in patients' interests to delay the start of that process any longer."
She said: "Appointments to the new posts will be made on the basis of a new contract and it is still possible for that contract to be an agreed one."
Ms Harney said it was disappointing, therefore, to see consultants choosing to withdraw from talks.
Ms Harney said: "To withdraw or step back from talks achieves nothing. It cannot be in patients' interests and it will not deliver anything for consultants."
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said that the IHCA's decision to withdraw from contract negotiations was "disappointing and premature - considering that the efforts of the parties had led to a large measure of agreement being reached on a considerable number of complex issues."
The HSE said it believed negotiations should continue in parallel with the current recruitment campaign.
"Any final agreement could inform the contracts to be offered to newly recruited consultants. The HSE is committed to quickly recruiting additional consultants, in a range of specialties, as part of its transformation programme," it said.
The talks were being held at the offices of the Health Service Executive Employers' Agency in Dublin under the chairmanship of Mark Connaughton.