Hospital consultants have taken a step closer to industrial action over plans by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to introduce a new way of insuring their practice.
Mr Martin plans to introduce the new insurance scheme, known as enterprise liability, on February 1st. The scheme will not cover consultants working exclusively in private practice.
However, with just three weeks to that deadline, there is still serious disagreement between the consultants and the Minister on a number of key aspects of the plan.
At the weekend, the national council of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) decided it would convene an extraordinary general meeting of members on February 1st if the scheme is introduced without agreement. Although the IHCA has a policy of not taking industrial action, it is not ruling out such a course on this occasion.
"He (the Minister) is lulling himself into a false sense of security thinking we won't take industrial action. We will be pushed further than ever before by members to look at our policy in this regard if the Minister introduces this without agreement," the secretary general of the IHCA, Mr Fitzpatrick said yesterday.
The new State scheme, which was discussed at Saturday's IHCA national council meeting, would not cover claims which may be taken against consultants at some future date arising out of alleged malpractice on a date before the new scheme came into operation.
Negotiations between the sides broke up without agreement last Thursday. Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said yesterday talks were now at a "stalemate".
"It is clearly set out in the consultant contract that any change in the manner in which they are insured must be by agreement and the IHCA received a written undertaking from the Minister last February reiterating that introduction of enterprise liability would be by agreement.
"It now seems as if the Minister will break his promise and drive a coach and four through the consultant contract," he added. Mr Fintan Hourihan, industrial relations director with the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), said the scheme could not be introduced without the agreement of his members. He said his organisation had serious grounds for concern at what is being proposed.
He has asked the Department of Health to furnish the IMO with its final proposals on the scheme by next Friday so that it can begin balloting its members on the plan this day week. Members will have two weeks from then until Friday, January 30th, to return ballot papers.
If members reject the proposals, the IMO will consider taking industrial action or seek an injunction to prevent the scheme going ahead, Mr Hourihan confirmed.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said last night that enterprise liability was Government policy. "It will go ahead in February," she said. She added that the Department had already offered consultants' representatives a number of concessions and had postponed the scheme's start date a number of times to allow talks to take place.
However, the Department is refusing to cover historic liabilities, believing these should be covered by the insurance company which insured the consultant at the time errors were allegedly made.
The problem with this, however, is that the Medical Defence Union (MDU), one of two companies insuring Irish doctors, has said it may not be able to cover all historic obstetric liabilities. The Department is prepared to help fund a test case against the MDU to see if it can force it to cover historic liabilities.