NEGOTIATIONS ON a new contract for hospital consultants look set to drag on for some weeks after their unions decided at the weekend it was too soon to put the latest draft of the contract to a ballot of members.
Minister for Health Mary Harney expressed disappointment at the decision by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA). However, she welcomed the admission by both bodies that progress was being made.
A deal on a new contract with the IHCA was announced in January, but at that stage it had not been documented in writing.
Since then a number of draft contracts have been produced, but the unions say they still have some concerns about the latest draft tabled last Thursday.
Speaking to reporters when she attended the annual conference of the IMO in Killarney on Saturday, Ms Harney said the IHCA was now looking for salaries of more than €300,000 a year for academic consultants, but this was "not on".
She said people could not wait any longer for more consultants to be appointed under a new contract and she would be meeting the HSE this week to discuss proceeding with the advertising of some of these new posts under the contract which had been drawn up.
"I will be meeting with the chairman of the HSE and the CEO at my monthly meeting with them next Wednesday, and I will be asking them to proceed now with the recruitment of new consultants because we cannot wait any longer."
Furthermore, she said the chairman of the talks, Mark Connaughton SC, had indicated in a letter sent to the IHCA and the IMO on Friday that the document that was presented "fairly and accurately reflects the agreement that was reached in January". The IHCA says Mr Connaughton did not use those words.
Ms Harney also insisted money was available for new consultant posts.
The unions had claimed employers were in no rush to produce an agreed document because there was no funding to appoint new consultants at present.
"Many of the posts are going to be funded by shrinking the number of non-consultant hospital doctors . . . We have 6,000 doctors working in our hospitals. 2,000 of them are consultants and 4,000 are non-consultant hospital doctors. We need to have 4,000 consultants and 2,000 non-consultant hospital doctors, and the bulk of the money for the new consultants has to come by shrinking the number of non-consultant hospital doctors."
Donal Duffy, assistant general secretary of the IHCA, said he hoped a deal could be finalised by the end of April or May. A number of issues, including disciplinary procedures and salaries for academic consultants, had yet to be agreed but the IHCA was "committed to the process".
Fintan Hourihan of the IMO said issues around how private practice is measured, and disciplinary procedures for consultants still had to be ironed out.