The Government has been accused of "incompetence and ineptitude" over its handling of the introduction of the European Working Time Directive for junior doctors.
The Labour Party says that with just 18 days left before the scheduled introduction of the directive the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, "is floundering and appears to have no strategy for dealing with the serious problems that will be encountered in many hospitals".
Junior doctors work an average of 72 hours a week and the directive, which comes into force on August 1st, will cut their hours by up to 20 per cent. This will reduce the time available to care for patients who require care but are not acutely ill.
Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said the Government has had almost seven years' notice of the requirement to implement the directive, which limits the hours junior doctors can work to 58 per week.
Ms McManus said: "What people want to know is how he [Mr Martin] is going to deal with the threat to patient care that will arise from his failure to negotiate new arrangements with the doctors".
She questioned how the Minister was going "to make up the 20 per cent reduction in doctor hours that will follow implementation of the directive."
Ms McManus said: "We have already had dire warnings from medical professionals of reduced cancer services, the likely sending abroad of neurological patients for treatment and the cancellation of elective treatment, if implementation of the directive goes ahead."
She warned the situation cannot be allowed to drift on and immediate action is required from the Minister to prevent "the serious erosion of hospital service" after August 1st.
Yesterday the president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Professor T J McKenna, warned cancer and heart patients awaiting tests will suffer "further unacceptably long delays for investigation and treatment" if the hours of junior doctors are dramatically reduced in three weeks' time.
But the health boards, as well as the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, claim the doctors want to protect their large overtime payments and want overtime if rostered outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
