Health service management has rejected claims by hospital consultants for a basic salary of €250,000 a year. Martin Wall, Industry Correspondent, reports.
Management told medical organisations yesterday that the salary proposals were "out of its range".
It is understood that management argued that when weekend premium payments and on-call and call-out allowances were added, the proposals advanced by the medical associations would see consultants' earnings reach almost €300,000.
Health service management has offered basic salaries of up to €216,000 a year for doctors opting for a new contract, which would involve longer hours and new restrictions on private practice.
Moreover, it is understood that management has signalled in talks with the medical organisations this week that it was prepared to revisit the pay issue.
The chief executive of the Health Service Employers Agency of the HSE, Gerard Barry, said last night that management was concerned about the lack of progress in finalising a new contract for consultants.
All parties had accepted proposals for a new contract put forward by the independent chairman, Mark Connaughton SC, last month although the medical organisations had raised some reservations.
However Mr Barry said that at talks yesterday the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) had said that it could not see the implementation within the life of a five-year contract of new rosters which would see consultants in some areas on site 24 hours a day and others working for five out of every seven days.
Mr Barry said that management viewed this, not as a reservation but as a de facto rejection.
He said that with the exception of the pay issue, management believed that the die had been cast in relation to the terms of the new consultants' contract.
Secretary general of the IHCA Finbarr Fitzpatrick said that in a press statement last month, Minister for Health Mary Harney had said that the potential total earnings for some consultants under a new contract would be €275,000. He said that the IHCA's proposals were in line with the Minister's calculations.
Ms Harney said earlier this week that she wanted a new contract with hospital consultants to be agreed by Christmas. "We're not going to wait any longer," she said.
However, the process has been beset for years by disagreements, walkouts and missed deadlines.
Earlier this year the Government moved to advertise 68 new consultant posts on revised terms without the agreement of the medical organisations.
However, it later put this process on hold to facilitate talks on an agreed deal.