Hospital consultants are to seek an increase in pay as part of negotiations on a new contract with the Government.
The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has written to the HSE in recent days stating that its consultant committee would give serious consideration to any request to enter talks to design a new consultant contract.
The most recent contract was agreed in 2008. However medical organisations argue it has never been implemented in full, particularly in relation to remuneration. In autumn 2012, the Government introduced a 30 per cent pay cut for consultants appointed after that date, although this has been largely reversed.
Medical organisations have contended that failure to implement in full the 2008 contract and the cuts imposed in 2012 make Irish hospital positions less attractive, leading to nearly 200 posts remaining vacant.
IMO assistant director of industrial relations Anthony Owens said: “We have a manpower crisis in our public hospitals where in many cases there are no applicants for consultant posts and a huge number of posts are being staffed by locums. The manpower crisis is being further exacerbated by the onerous hours and duties being undertaken by consultants with too few supports.”
He said if the Government was serious about tackling this issue and encouraging highly qualified doctors to stay, or come back to work in Ireland, existing contractual arrangements must be honoured.
In early October Minister for Health Leo Varadkar signalled that pay restoration was on the way for hospital consultants and that within a few years, pay rates would once again be in the region of €200,000 a year.
He also signalled that he favoured reforms which could see consultants have greater freedom to carry out private practice provided public commitments were met.
He told the annual conference of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association that senior doctors who backed the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements could stand to receive between €12,000 and €13,000 in pay restoration in the years ahead. He said this pay restoration would be achieved in three phases starting in April 2017.
“For example, this will bring the salary of a type A (exclusively public service) consultant at the sixth point on the scale appointed prior to September 2012 back up to €192,000 in April 2019.”
The Minister also signalled he favoured many changes to the existing contractual designations for consultants which determine their rights, if any, to carry out private practice. He would he said prefer a single contract, perhaps similar to that of consultants in the British National Health Service, with a basic salary and bonuses.
Mr Owens said the Minister appeared “to ignore the evidence that limiting access to private practice is the precursor to capacity issues in both the public and private settings”.
