Consultants' cover: Hospital consultants will hold an extraordinary general meeting at the beginning of February to decide on whether to proceed with industrial action in protest at the failure of the Government to deal with the protracted row over medical malpractice insurance.
The industrial action, which if implemented would escalate over several weeks, could see the cancellation of all non-elective admissions to hospitals and the closure of out-patient clinics.
In the meantime, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) will continue with its boycott of the planning groups working on the implementation of the controversial Hanly report recommendations on hospital reforms.
No progress has been made on implementing the Hanly proposals for almost a year because of the row between the consultants, the Government and the UK-based medical indemnity company, the Medical Defence Union (MDU), over insurance for senior doctors.
The row centres on who should pay for historic liabilities arising from malpractice cases taken against doctors before the introduction of a new State indemnity scheme last February.
The MDU has said that it did not charge sufficiently high subscriptions to Irish doctors, particularly those in the field of obstetrics, and that it does not have the money to pay for past liabilities.
It wants the Government to meet the bill which actuarial estimates have put as high as €400 million.
The Minister for Health, Ms Harney, told the consultants last week that the Government wanted to deal with the insurance issue as part of a twin-track approach which would also see negotiations on a new contract for consultants.
The Government has already said that no consultant would be left financially exposed as a result of what it has described as "the irresponsible decision" of the MDU not to provide cover in certain cases.
The IHCA is insisting that there has to be sequential negotiations and that the insurance issue must be addressed prior to talks commencing on a new contract.
The Government views a new consultants' contract as one of the centrepieces of its entire healthcare reform programme.
Without a new contract in place, the Government will not sanction the appointment of the hundreds of additional consultants required under Hanly and to meet the new EU working time directive for doctors in hospitals.
Sources close to Ms Harney told The Irish Times that the Government wanted "concurrent talks on both issues to be concluded within a reasonable timeframe".
The Government, they said, would not use the insurance issue as a bargaining chip or as leverage in negotiations with consultants on a new contract.
