No further progress is expected on negotiations between hospital consultants and the Department of Health until after the weekend. Talks ended without agreement in the early hours of yesterday. The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association is going to advise members to reject the proposals based on the Buckley Review of consultants' pay and conditions at its annual general meeting on Saturday.
It is believed that after almost 80 hours of recent negotiations, Department officials had expected that the association would accept a revised document and were surprised when it was rejected on Tuesday night. However, the association's secretary general, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said while there had been a lot of progress, there were still outstanding difficulties.
They include payments for consultants on call, call-out payments, rest days following on-call periods and uncertainty over the payment of increases to consultant pensioners. The talks were independently chaired by barrister Mr Mark Connaughton. "There are four sticking points that we consider to be serious. However, we do believe that they can be resolved," Mr Fitzpatrick said.
On the out-of-hours payment, the Department had made concessions but these were not acceptable to the association negotiators. "We expect that the a.g.m. will reject the package," Mr Fitzpatrick said. It is believed there will be no further approaches from the Department until after the weekend meeting.
As a further step, the consultants' association is considering non-co-operation, Mr Fitzpatrick added. This would involve withdrawal from a number of hospital committees.
Mr Conal Devine, industrial relations director with the Irish Medical Organisation, said that while it still had unresolved issues following the negotiations, there had been "significant points of agreement".
"There is not a major concern in relation to the total amount of money available but a question of making sure the money is given in an equitable way," he said.