The body representing the majority of hospital consultants in the State yesterday voted to go back into talks with health service employers on a new contract for its members.
However, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), which simultaneously voted no confidence in the Health Service Executive at an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin, insisted the talks would have to resume without preconditions.
Therefore a decision by the HSE to abolish one type of consultant contract that entitles consultants working in public hospitals to off-site private practice would have to lifted before the talks could resume.
The HSE is considered unlikely to lift this ban and last night the Minister for Health Mary Harney signalled the time for talking may be over.
Her spokesman said the Minister found it hard to understand how meaningful negotiations could proceed when the IHCA had passed a motion of no confidence in HSE management, which would be leading those talks.
"She will be proceeding to bring proposals to Government to implement Government policy on the hiring of new consultants into the health service and achieving a more equitable access for all patients in public hospitals," he said.
A spokesman for the HSE said the IHCA recommendation that they go back into talks was noted and it was awaiting formal clarification from the association as to what it meant by "unconditional".
Earlier yesterday the Tánaiste Michael McDowell indicated the Government may introduce legislation to bypass any attempt by consultants to block new contracts. If consultants refuse to co-operate "the Government may resort to a legislative approach to substitute terms of contract", he told RTÉ.
The negotiation of a new contract with the State's 2,100 hospital consultants is seen as one of the main building blocks of the health service reform programme.
However, the talks with the doctors' representative bodies have never really got off the ground. The independent talks chairman, Mark Connaughton SC, proposed last week that the parties give a commitment to "unconditional negotiations" as a way forward.
Finbarr Fitzpatrick, secretary general of the IHCA, said last night his members were accepting Mr Connaughton's proposal and the ball was now back in the HSE's court.
He added that the decision to go back into talks was based on the Connaughton proposal rather than any threat from the Minister to impose a public hospital-only contract on new consultants if agreement between the sides could not be reached.