Talks were continuing last night between health service management and medical organisations in what the Government and the Health Service Executive have signalled is the final opportunity to reached a deal on a new contract for hospital consultants.
As the talks started yesterday the parties remained apart on crucial issues such as pay, the monitoring and enforcement of private practice arrangements, hours of work, the appointment of clinical directors in hospitals and new disciplinary procedures.
Chief executive of the HSE Prof Brendan Drumm said he did not expect further increases in pay to be offered at the talks.
He said the pay terms had already been "well flagged".
Under current proposals doctors opting for a contract which would see them work exclusively in public hospitals would receive a salary of up to €235,000.
Prof Drumm said a hugely generous offer had already been made to consultants and that value had to be provided for the taxpayer.
Medical organisations have argued that for many doctors the new pay offer represents little or no increase in the hourly rate for the job, given that they will be expected to be in hospitals over a longer working week.
Prof Drumm also signalled that the current talks represented the end of the negotiating process.
He said a large amount of work had been put in by all sides but a stage had been reached "where we have to move on".
The Irish Times revealed yesterday that the HSE has put in place contingency plans to advertise unilaterally next month for new consultants on revised terms and conditions if there is no agreement reached at the current talks.
The HSE will also reactivate a plan to recruit 68 new consultants on revised terms, which it suspended last year to allow for further negotiations.
The Irish Medical Organisation and Irish Hospital Consultants Association have said that they will not co-operate with the recruitment of new doctors on terms put in place unilaterally by the HSE.
Under a contingency plan drawn up for Minister for Health Mary Harney, the HSE has said it would, if necessary, seek medial experts from abroad to assess candidates and serve on interview panels if the Irish medical organisations boycott the process.
Medical organisations strongly criticised the emergence of the contingency plans at the start of the talks yesterday.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association described the move as "provocative".
Entering the talks yesterday, Finbarr Fitzpatrick of the association said he was not overly confident that a deal would be reached by last night.
Last night Mr Fitzpatrick said some progress had been made and it was hoped that there could be agreement in some areas.
Fintan Hourihan of the Irish Medical Organisation insisted that doctors would stay at the talks for as long as necessary and that his organisation was anxious to reach agreement.
