Hospital consultants are set to join nurses in refusing to co-operate with management after voting to take industrial action.
The ballot of over 1,000 members of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) resulted in a majority vote in favour of the action, which is due to begin from Monday week.
Consultants will refuse to take part in hospital and national committees, and will no longer make themselves available for any meetings with Health Service Executive (HSE) senior management, according to a report in today's Irish Times.
They will also refuse to do work which would normally be done by locums except in emergencies.
The action is in response to a decision by Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE to advertise for 68 new posts on terms which have not been agreed. The consultants will also boycott the filling of these posts
The Labour Party's health spokeswoman Liz McManus said Ms Harney appeared "intent on picking rows" with health service staff.
"The public can ill afford to have this kind of disruption in the health service," Ms McManus said.
The IHCA decision comes as the nurses' dispute is due to enter its seventh week with no sign of a resolution. The nurses plan to escalate their action next week.
Yesterday, the HSE said it will call in consultants to examine how nurses' working hours might be reduced without affecting services to patients.
In a statement, the HSE said a "realistic and honest" approach was the only way to resolve the dispute and that the more it was prolonged, the more patients would suffer.
The HSE said the commissioned study would assess the feasibility of introducing "on a cost-neutral and whole-time equivalent (WTE) neutral basis, a reduction in the weekly hours of work (of the staff involved) by reconfiguration of the workforce".
"Such a feasibility study would determine whether any potential risk to the availability, quality and accessibility of health service provision might ensue," the statement added.
The HSE said a group of suppliers who had previously qualified to take part in 'mini-tender' competitions for medical consultancy services, had today been notified of its plans and asked to submit expressions of interest.