The Minister for Health was accused of being "unfair" to the 300 mainly female public health doctors who today enter their third day of strike action.
Mr Martin said the strike was absolutely unjustifiable and unnecessary and he criticised the Irish Medical Organisation, which seemed to have a "preference for strike action rather than mediation or resolution" through the Labour Court. He believed the IMO was in breach of the latest pay deal, Sustaining Progress.
However, Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said that the doctors were not on strike "on a whim". These doctors did "unglamorous, non-frontline work" and this issue had been "boiling up for a long time".
It was unfair to say they would not go to the Labour Court "when they did offer to go in the past and the Department said 'no need, we'll deal with you' and the Department never dealt."
Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said the people involved in the strike "are the least militant you could imagine and their patience has run out at the bad faith of the Department".
