IMO to challenge pay rise for consultants

The Irish Medical Organisation was given leave by the High Court yesterday to challenge a decision of the Minister for Health authorising a 3 per cent pay rise for hospital consultants.

Mr Tom Mallon, for the IMO and a number of consultants, accepted he was in the unusual position of seeking to stop a pay increase but said his clients had no other option in a situation where it had not been heard by the review body which had recommended the increase.

It might be that intervention by the IMO might not have changed the mind of the review body, counsel said. But the IMO was a trade union which had to do its best to represent its members' interests and its function was denied if it was given no opportunity - as in this case - to make submissions to the review body which recommended the pay increase. The Minister had accepted that recommendation and in January had directed it should be implemented. Counsel said the application arose out of the fact that a review body, set up in February 1996 to review the salaries of some 650 senior civil servants, had in September 1996, been asked by the Minister for Health also to review the salaries of hospital consultants.

The IMO was not aware that consultants had been included in this review until the report of that review body - Report No 37 - appeared in January 1997. Neither was the IMO invited to make submissions to the review body.

When the IMO became aware of the situation, it registered objections with the Department of Health, he said. But, despite these, the Minister had on January 11th issued a letter to health boards and others directing they implement the pay recommendations regarding hospital consultants.

His clients' grievance arose because the Minister had referred the consultants' pay issue to the review body at a time when the report of a separate review into the specific issue of consultants' pay had not even appeared, he said. That report - Report No 36 - was issued in December 1996.

This meant the IMO was in a situation where consultants' pay was being dealt with in two reviews although it was unaware of that fact. The IMO believed consultants pay was being dealt with in only one of the reviews. In those circumstances, the IMO had made a submission on consultants' pay only to that review dealing specifically with consultants. It had made a general submission on remuneration to the other review body but this did not address the issue of consultants' pay because the IMO was unaware that consultants were to be included in that review.

Mr Justice O'Higgins granted leave to seek an order, by way of judicial review, quashing the decision of the Minister set out in the letter of January 11th directing implementation of the review body's recommendations regarding consultants' pay.