Health service management has now offered salary scales of up to €235,000 per year for hospital consultants who take a proposed new contract of employment with the State.
The new offer would represent the top-of-the-scale salary for consultants opting for a new type-A contract, under which they would work exclusively in public hospitals and have no private practice rights.
Management has now also offered salaries of up to €205,000 for the proposed type-B contract, which would provide consultants with limited rights to treat fee-paying patients in public hospitals and in the new co-located private facilities which are to be developed.
Under the new offer, consultants appointed to the limited number of type-C contract posts, which would allow for private practice in off-site private hospitals, would receive €170,000.
The new offer has been made in recent days by management through the independent chairman of the talks process, senior counsel Mark Connaughton.
This is at least the third occasion in which management has increased the proposed salary scales for a new consultant contract in recent months.
The current talks process is due to come to an end within the next few days under a timeframe which was set down by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, before Christmas.
The Minister had set a deadline of Christmas for the conclusion of negotiations. The talks had been going on for almost four years.
However, at Mr Connaughton's request, Ms Harney granted a two-week extension in January.
Senior health-service management sources said yesterday that it was envisaged Mr Connaughton's role would finish by the end of this week.
Mr Connaughton has been holding bilateral talks with representative bodies for hospital consultants over the last week or so in efforts to secure an agreement between the parties.
It is understood that these discussions have centred on issues such as pay and private practice, including how this could be measured and a planned 20 per cent cap enforced.
There have also been talks on hours of work, practice plans for consultants and proposed disciplinary procedures under the new contract.
Informed sources said that when Ms Harney sanctioned the two-week extension in the talks she also asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to draw up contingency plans to be put into operation if agreement on a new contract was not reached between management and medical organisations.
These plans are expected to involve the Government unilaterally moving ahead to advertise for new consultants on revised terms and conditions.
Last spring the Government advertised 68 consultant posts on revised terms and conditions after talks with medical organisations broke down.
However, no closing date was ever set for receipt of applications and the process was eventually suspended after the general election to allow for further negotiations.
The medical organisations have warned that they would strongly oppose any Government moves to appoint new consultants on a revised contact without agreement.