Talks resume to resolve doctors' dispute

Doctors' union and health service employers will meet at the Labour Relations Commission to try and resolve a seven-week dispute…

Doctors' union and health service employers will meet at the Labour Relations Commission to try and resolve a seven-week dispute over pay and conditions.

Talks broke down last month and there is little optimism that today's talks will break the deadlock.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), representing the State's 270 public health doctors, is seeking pay parity with hospital consultants, a claim that is being resisted by the Health Service Employers' Agency.

The IMO is also looking for the implementation of the Brennan review on the structures and payments for an out-of-hours service.

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The public health doctors, 80 per cent of whom are women, began their strike on April 14th, having voted for industrial action last December because of the Department's failure to begin talks on the Brennan review.

Their work includes the surveillance and control of infectious diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, meningitis, measles, the winter vomiting virus and food poisoning.

The Department of Health is understood to be anxious to resolve the dispute ahead of next month's Special Olympics.