Department of Health officials will meet consultants to try and halt the industrial action that began at the State's hospitals today.
The senior doctors are angry over the introduction of new medical insurance, known as enterprise liability, without their agreement.
Today's action will see consultants cease administrative duties and will gradually escalate. All but emergency work will be withdrawn in three weeks if the matter is not resolved.
"The Minister's very drastic decision to leave public and private patients uncovered has forced hospital consultants to take action to protect them," the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said.
Consultants are concerned the new insurance scheme does not cover them against claims over past mistakes for which a complaint has not yet been made. Nurses, laboratory technicians and some other health workers have been covered by the enterprise liability scheme for some time. It was extended to cover the consultants yesterday.
Dr Colm Quigley, president of the IHCA , said consultants had been forced into the move by the Minister for Health, who had introduced the new insurance scheme without agreeing it with them.
"From today, hospital consultants are withdrawing from administrative involvement in any discussion groups, implementation bodies with the Department of Health and its agencies," he said.
"So we're not going to co-operate with the Department of Health in any way. We will continue to provide absolute emergency service and urgent care throughout the country but any elective work will stop in both public and private hospitals in three weeks' time."
Mr Martin said the consultants ' plan was a gross over-reaction and unacceptable for patient care.
"I find it extraordinary that any group of workers or consultants would engage in industrial action when the state is bringing in an insurance scheme that effectively provides that scheme at no cost to the consultants for both public and private work in public hospitals," he told RTE radio.
The Labour Party spokeswoman on health, Ms Liz McManus said it was time for both the Minister for Health and the IHCA to "start putting the patient first and to make a determined effort
to settle the dispute".
She said the introduction of a new insurance scheme without the agreement of the consultants "was bound to create unnecessary conflict".
"It is not acceptable for Minister Martin to wash his hands on the issue of historic liability of insurance claims and to leave decisions in this area to the courts, particularly when it would be a British court making the determination and the House of Lords, presumably, hearing any appeal This approach could expose the Irish taxpayer to serious risk."
She urged the IHCA not to go ahead with its threat to withdraw treatment from elective patients, saying that while it may not put lives at risk, it would certainly add to the suffering and distress of patients who are already enduring long periods on waiting lists for what it often urgently required treatment.
Meanwhile, representatives of the Department of Health and Children and the Medical Defence Union (MDU) met this morning. The Medical Defence Union was one of two British organisations which had insured Irish consultants until yesterday. The doctors paid insurance premia to the MDU, most of which was reimbursed by the State.
In a statement, the department said: "A number of issues were discussed and explored. Further issues need to be clarified. Two further meetings have been arranged, the first next week, to take this process forward."