MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney has said that there is no guarantee that about €68 million in salary increases due to hospital consultants this year will be paid.
The Minister told the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association and the Irish Medical Organisation yesterday that the matter would be kept under close review given the very challenging economic situation faced by the Government.
The Minister told the Dáil last week that she intended to withhold €68 million in salary increases and additional payments due to consultants under a new contract until reformed work practices were "being delivered on the ground".
The implementation of the new consultants' contract will cost the Government more than €140 million next year. However, the issue of €68 million in back money due under the contract for 2008 remained outstanding.
A spokesman for the Minister said that Ms Harney could not commit to paying this back money but would keep it under close review in consultation with Cabinet colleagues. The spokesman said that the Minister had focused on the need in 2009 for the implementation of the new contract and the new organisation of patient services that it would bring.
He said the Minister had made it clear that the additional money was for "radically new ways of working to be delivered by consultants . . . centrally involved in planning, organisation and delivery of patients' care.
Ms Harney told the consultants' organisations that the money for implementing the new changes would be available next year, notwithstanding the very challenging economic situation faced by the Government.
Under the new contract, hospital consultants will work an extended day as well as weekends. They will also work within teams under new clinical directors. There will also be new restrictions on private practice in public hospitals.
The Minister told an Oireachtas committee last week that she was "deeply concerned" at the slow rate of progress in implementing the contract. Ms Harney told the committee she did not envisage approving increases in salaries and making retrospective payments before the end of the year.
"I intend revisiting the issue of salary increases as soon as sufficient progress is achieved . . . Provision has been made in the Estimates for next year for the ongoing costs of the agreement.
"The issue of retrospection will have to be carefully considered" she said.
One of the areas highlighted by Ms Harney last week was the failure to appoint clinical directors to hospitals.
However, The Irish Timesrevealed yesterday that the HSE had only advertised for new clinical director posts on Friday of last week, the day after Ms Harney addressed the committee.
In a circular from the national hospitals office inviting applications for the post, the HSE said that as an initial step, nominations would be sought for the appointment of one clinical director in each hospital group under the aegis of the national hospitals office. The appointment process will conclude on January 16th, 2009. The clinical directors will have a wide range of responsibilities, including ensuring that consultants with rights to treat private patients do not spend excessive periods treating them at the expense of public patients.
The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association said last night that the issues over the appointment of clinical directors was to be referred back to the chairman of the talks who brokered the deal on the new contract, Mark Connaughton SC.
The national council of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association is to consider the Minister's move to withhold the pay increases due under the contract at a meeting today.