Court challenge on scrapping of allowance for non-consultant doctors

The Government is facing a court challenge later this month to a controversial decision to abolish allowances worth about €3,000 for non-consultant hospital doctors.

The living-out allowance of €61.20 per week was scrapped by the then Fine Gael /Labour coalition along with a host of other allowances paid across the public service to staff recruited after early 2012.

In a letter to the Minister for Health Simon Harris, the Irish Medical Organisation said a court action against the Government over the abolition of the living-out allowance was due to be heard on October 25th.

The IMO contended thatit had sought the restoration of the allowance from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform following a deal reached last May which effectively reversed cuts in allowances worth about €4,500 paid to firefighters.

However, the IMO said this application was rejected on the basis of the “unique” circumstances of the firefighters’ case.

The IMO said that subsequently allowances for honours degrees worth nearly €5,000 per year were restored for teachers who were members of the INTO and TUI unions.

The IMO said that the Government had also offered restoration of rent allowances worth about €4,000 for recently recruited gardaí. This deal was rejected by the Garda Representative Association. In its letter to the Minister, the IMO said: "It appears surprising that both the Department (of Health) and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform would seek to defend the current proceedings in circumstances where the revised arrangements for gardaí, firefighters and teachers ae directly analogous to the living-out allowances removed from new entrant doctors in training."

The IMO also said yesterday that it wanted to re-iterate its commitment to supporting hospital consultants who were taking court action against the Government over the non-payment of increases that formed part of a contract agreed in 2008.

Earlier this week it emerged that the HSE had increased its estimate for the cost of paying compensation from about €300 million to €700 million.

Meanwhile the IMO also warned that the coming budget “must see a substantial increase in resources to address serious infrastructural problems across the health service”.

IMO president Dr John Duddy said: "It is hard to overstate the level of damage inflicted on our health services through the recession. GP services are on their knees, physical infrastructure is at breaking point, there's a major problem with bed capacity, hospitals are operating above internationally recognised safety thresholds and across the profession doctors are emigrating in ever-increasing numbers."

Among the measures sought by the IMO were: funding for a new GP contract with focus on extending range of services; immediate reversal of financial emergency cuts to general practice; immediate increase in acute beds; more resources formental health services; abolition of prescription charges for medical card patients and a reduction in the threshold for reimbursement under the Drugs Payment Scheme as well as the introduction of a sugar tax with proceeds to be ring-fenced to support obesity programmes.