The Irish Medical Organisation is to apply to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for permission to mount all-out pickets at health boards' hospitals across the State in support of striking public health doctors.
The doctors, now in their fourth week of a strike over pay and working conditions, decided yesterday to escalate their action.
This follows what they called the failure of Government to table any settlement proposals since the dispute began.
The union agreed a six-point escalation plan yesterday, which will include immediately balloting community ophthalmic physicians on possible industrial action.
They are linked for pay purposes to public health doctors.
In addition they decided that public health doctors will picket acute hospitals from today.
Up to now they have been picketing outside health board offices and the National Disease Surveillance Centre.
If ICTU allows all-out pickets, all hospital staff, including non-medical staff, would be encouraged not to pass the public health doctors' pickets, plunging hospitals into deep crisis.
Other details of the escalation plan will be revealed next week, the IMO's president, Dr Joe Barry, said last night.
In addition, the union is to review the amount of emergency cover it is providing during its strike "in view of the ongoing abuse by the Department of Health and Children of the goodwill shown by the doctors involved, who received more than 100 calls for emergency assistance in the first three weeks of this strike".
There are 270 public health doctors in the State, mostly women, and their main task involves surveillance and control of infectious diseases such as meningitis, TB and measles.
They also organise children's vaccination programmes.
Dr Barry accused the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, of making misleading statements to the effect that the doctors had been offered substantial pay rises.
He said the department had failed to make any attempt to resolve the dispute, which began nine years ago, and instead "attempted to engage in a futile spin-doctoring exercise".
"It is a matter of public record that they failed to produce a single proposal when invited to talks at the Labour Relations Commission last week," he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Martin said last night that he was once again urging the doctors to use the industrial relations machinery available to them to solve the dispute.