The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) today called for realism not rhetoric in reform of the health service.
As the group's annual conference begins, IMO chiefs accused management in the Health Service Executive (HSE) of a lack of transparency when it comes to high level decision making.
They called on the HSE to agree to a partnership process recognising the need for constructive and meaningful engagement with the medical profession.
IMO president Dr Christine O'Malley also warned that although plans for reform should be praised there was still a problem with a lack of resources.
"The much-talked-about reform of the health service has been laudable but very aspirational, and it has prevented the making of appropriate arrangements for particular elements of the health service," she said.
"The real problems that patients face are the lack of infrastructure and the lack of resources. Blaming individual doctors for the inevitable results of a failing system is masking the real problems within the health service."
At the four-day conference in Killarney, Co Kerry a wide range of motions are to be discussed including one deploring the centralisation of authority.
Other motions call for a moratorium on the sale and growing of genetically engineered crops in Ireland, State funding to be refused to sporting organisations who accept sponsorship from alcohol companies, and regional sexually transmitted disease clinics.
PA