Agreement has been reached on a review of working conditions for specialist registrars in health service hospitals, following over five hours of intensive negotiations between the Irish Medical Organisation and the Health Service Employers' Agency last night.
The review will be concluded within six months and will include training for specialists during "protected hours", when they will not have to be on-call.
Talks between the two sides are to resume today in an effort to defuse the highly volatile situation that now exists because of the Government's decision to phase in a shorter working week for Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors (NCHDs) over 13 years. Although specialist registrars comprise only 250 of the 2,500 NCHDs in the Republic, speedy resolution of their grievances could make resolution of the larger issues easier.
In a joint statement the HSEA and IMO said that discussions had been conducted in "a positive manner". They would be considering proposals put forward on both sides overnight and resuming contact in the morning.
Meanwhile, hundreds of NCHDs took part in lunchtime protests over working conditions at about 30 hospitals throughout the Republic yesterday, despite appeals from the IMO to defer the unofficial action until after today's talks. NCHDs in the majority of the hospitals respected the appeals and where protests did take place they were not disruptive.
They appear to have been most strongly supported in hospitals where there has been a history of conflict with management.