The Government is to withhold pay increases due under the Towards 2016 national agreement from about 1,600 hospital consultants who are currently engaged in industrial action.
The consultants are refusing to participate in hospital and national committees and are boycotting some administrative duties as part of a row over the Government's decision to advertise new posts on revised contracts without agreement.
In a letter sent last night to the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA), the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, said that in view of the industrial action, he was not in a position to sanction the latest increase due under the national agreement.
Consultants were scheduled to receive a 2 per cent pay increase with effect from June 1st under the terms of Towards 2016.
The move could see consultants lose out on increases of up to €55 per week, according to the IHCA.
The IHCA last night criticised the department's decision and said that it would appeal the move.
IHCA assistant secretary general Donal Duffy said that the organisation was surprised at the decision.
"One of the objectives of the Towards 2016 agreement is to produce a stable industrial climate. One of the benefits of a stable industrial climate is that services would not be interrupted.
"We have not interrupted services and it is peculiar that people who have not interrupted services are being penalised," Mr Duffy said. Consultant members of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) are not participating in the industrial action, although they are not doing work that would have been carried out by doctors in the IHCA.
Talks between the medical representative bodies and health service management on a new contract for consultants effectively broke down following the unilateral decision of the Government last month to advertise 68 new posts on revised terms and conditions.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said earlier this week that there would be no pause in the recruitment process for new hospital consultants, despite the limited industrial action undertaken by the IHCA.
She said the public would find it hard to understand how consultant organisations would seek to stop recruitment to posts that they had demanded for some time and which were for badly- needed patient services in areas such as rheumatology, cystic fibrosis and psychiatry.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said that patient care would be affected as a result of the industrial action undertaken by the IHCA. However, the consultants' organisation has strongly rejected this claim.
Talks between the consultants' organisation and the HSE are unlikely to resume before the formation of the new government.
Last year, the department withheld a pay increase due to to consultant psychiatrists who were refusing to serve on mental health tribunals.
The money due was eventually paid following the resolution of the dispute.
