The proposed EU directive restricting working hours has been welcomed by the Irish Medical Organisation on behalf of junior hospital doctors. However, the Irish Road Haulage Association has warned it would increase costs prohibitively.
"We've been campaigning since junior hospital doctors were excluded from the 1993 directive to have them included," said Mr Conal Devine, the director of industrial relations at the IMO. "We're very happy on behalf of the doctors and for the sake of patients' safety that they've been included."
But he warned that they could yet find themselves outside the protection of this directive. "It still has to get past the Council of Ministers. That's where it fell the last time. The Irish and British governments effectively vetoed it," he said. "The average number of hours worked now by junior doctors is between 70 and 75."
"I want to applaud Commissioner Flynn," Mr Devine said. "There was a lot of opposition to this, and he faced it down."
Asked if the Government would oppose the directive at the Council of Ministers, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it had not yet seen the directive and could not comment on its contents.
Mr Gerry McMahon, vice-president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, also said they had not yet seen the terms of the directive, but the industry was very regulated as it is.
"If a guy leaves home to go to Germany it is hard to see how he would be back within 48 hours, especially if you include loading and unloading, which could take five or six hours. The knock-on effect would be to have two drivers per truck. I doubt if manufacturing industry is prepared to absorb those costs," he said.