The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said last night it was neither appropriate nor necessary for him to intervene in the strike by public health doctors.
The 270 doctors, who enter their third day of strike action today, are protesting over pay and working conditions. In particular, they are concerned there is no structured out-of-hours service in the State for them to monitor and control outbreaks of infectious diseases such as SARS, meningitis and measles.
Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Martin said he was seriously concerned at the strike and urged the doctors representative body, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), to return to negotiations. He said the IMO had lodged a 30 per cent pay claim in addition to increases of up to 14 per cent, which had been approved under benchmarking, and the 7 per cent increase to be paid under the terms of the new national pay agreement Sustaining Progress.
The doctors had, he said, been offered a 25 per cent increase before the strike, inclusive of increases under benchmarking and Sustaining Progress. This had been rejected. Had they been accepted, he said, they would have translated into "very substantial amounts", an increase of €29,000 in the salary of directors of public health and of €17,000 for public health specialists.
The IMO's director of industrial relations, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said the IMO had not sought a 30 per cent pay increase and the Minister had obviously been "badly advised" in this regard.