Talks between health service management and hospital consultants over a new contract ended in stalemate yesterday.
The Irish Times understands that the negotiations between senior officials of the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health and consultant representative bodies became bogged down in rows over how payment for changes to the existing contract would be determined as well as over a number of outstanding grievances.
The Government considers the introduction of a new contract for consultants to be a key element of its overall healthcare reforms.
Talks on the new contract were delayed for over a year as a result of a dispute over insurance cover for doctors. Last September Minister for Finance Brian Cowen specifically criticised hospital consultants for holding up change by failing to engage in talks on a new contract.
At the meeting yesterday health service management did not table specific proposals for reform, which are expected to include restrictions on private practice and new accountability measures for money spent by consultants.
It is understood that the medical bodies, the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association and the Irish Medical Organisation, objected strongly to proposals by management that any new contract should be referred to the review body on top-level pay in the public sector to determine future salary scales .
It is understood that the medical bodies want the issue of remuneration to be addressed as an integral part of the current talks.
The secretary general of the IHCA, Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said last night that the organisation would not consider any proposals from the Department of Health with regard to a revision of the consultants' contract until an acceptable mechanism for pricing the new agreement had been put in place.
"We believe that the proposals by the Department of Health that this issue be referred to the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector are unacceptable".
The director of industrial relations at the IMO, Fintan Hourihan, said that the talks yesterday had been " abrasive".
Mr Hourihan said that the medical bodies had raised concerns at health service management breaching the existing contract for consultants.
He said that the IMO wanted health service management to put in place a process to deal with a series of outstanding grievances. These include disciplinary procedures for hospital consultants, pension arrangements for consultants returning from overseas to take up positions in Ireland and the failure of health service management to apply a recent 7.5 per cent pay increase to on-call and call-out payments.
A spokesman for the Health Service Executive said last night that the talks had been constructive. They are scheduled to resume in a fortnight.
