The Labour Court has rejected claims made by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) on behalf of public health doctors for payment for the provision of an interim out-of-hours service as well as for a 7.5 per cent increase granted to top level groups in the public sector two years ago.
The review body on higher remuneration in the public service, which assesses top level pay, is examining the issues surrounding the introduction of a substantive public health out-of-hours service. Such a scheme would deal with matters such as the outbreak of infectious diseases and is considered a necessity by both the HSE and the doctors' union.
The Labour Court was asked to consider the issue of pay for such a service on an interim basis.
The HSE said the service would involve doctors being on-call one week in every five and offered an all-in payment of €500 per week, a total of €5,000 per year. This would be in addition to their regular salary.
The IMO proposed that public health doctors be paid in one of two ways. It suggested that the public health doctors involved could be paid a hospital consultant's salary which would be about €180,000 per year. Alternatively they could receive an on-call rate similar to that paid to non-consultant hospital doctors. This would equate to about €60,000 per year, which could rise to €80,000 depending on the level of activity involved.
The IMO argued that public health doctors should be paid the same as hospital consultants or, at least, a similar rate to non-consultant doctors.
The HSE contended that the offer of €500 per week was more than reasonable given the call-out service involved. It maintained that the level of call-out would be "minimal" and that the service could primarily be provided by telephone.
In its finding the Labour Court said the report of the review body on the substantive issue was expected later in the year.
"In these circumstances the court recommends that the position put forward by the HSE for the operation of an interim service be accepted without prejudice to the outcome of the review body's consideration of the matter," it said.
"The court further recommends that if the outcome of the review body's report results in more favourable arrangements than those proposed by the HSE, the new arrangements should apply retrospectively to the commencement of the interim arrangements," it stated.
It also said it could not recommend awarding the 7.5 per cent pay deal to directors and specialists in public health medicine as these groups had already received increases under the benchmarking system.