Doctors agree to talks on dispute

Fresh talks aimed at ending the seven-week-old public health doctors' strike are to take place on Friday.

The Irish Medical Organisation, representing the State's 270 public health doctors, agreed to an invitation to talks - to be facilitated by the Labour Relations Commission - following third-party contacts with the Health Service Employers' Agency and the Department of Health.

Mr Fintan Hourihan, the IMO's director of industrial relations, said the move followed a commitment by the Department yesterday to furnish proposals on implementing the so-called Brennan review on public health doctor grades. This was the first time such a commitment had been given since the review's completion in April 2002, he said.

Asked whether this amounted to a breakthrough in the dispute, Mr Hourihan replied: "I don't want to sound negative but until we see what they have to say it's hard to say what it means."

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 negotiations on the Brennan review. Their work includes the surveillance and control of infectious diseases such as SARS, meningitis, measles, the winter vomiting virus and food poisoning.

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