Hospital managers who do not clean up hospitals could be in danger of losing their jobs, Minister for Health Mary Harney signalled yesterday.
She said while she was not "looking for heads" following the latest hospital hygiene audit she saw "no reason why we should keep anybody in the health system that isn't doing the job that they are required to and they are being paid to do".
Ms Harney, who was speaking on the News at One programme on RTÉ, said there was no excuse for our hospitals not meeting the highest possible standard as far as hygiene is concerned.
"Where the hospitals fall down and this is a failing that is not acceptable, they fall down in relation to corporate governance on this issue . . . the hospitals do not at a senior level take the issue of hygiene seriously . . . the management aren't taking it seriously enough," she added.
Her comments came a day after an independent audit of hospital hygiene by the Health Information and Quality Authority found not one of 51 public hospitals could be classed as having "very good" hygiene.
Ms Harney said that despite all the recent controversies in the health service, including the misdiagnosis of women with breast cancer, she did not regret taking on the health ministry. "I love it . . . I love the job, I love the challenge," she said.
She rejected the suggestion she had failed to persuade the public she was up to doing the job. Ms Harney said she had indicated when she took up her post three years ago there was no magic wand and that it would take time to reform the health service.
She said she now wanted a new contract with hospital consultants to be agreed by Christmas. "We're not going to wait any longer," she said.
But two years ago she said she would begin recruiting consultants under a new public-only contract if a deal could not be reached within months.
However, she said she was now confident badly-needed extra consultants could be recruited on the basis of a new contract by the new year.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said later her statement that negotiations on a new contract would be finalised by Christmas did not mean there would be an agreement.
Donal Duffy, assistant secretary general of the IHCA, said it had become patently obvious to the IHCA negotiators that the State was determined not to agree a negotiated contract. "Instead it believes that it can successfully implement its reform programme with consultants on two different types of contract. With the best will in the world, that will not work and so her reform plans are doomed to failure," he said.
The national council of the IHCA will meet on Saturday to review the ongoing contract talks and to determine "whether there is any merit in continuing to participate in the Minister's process," he added.