Talks on new rosters which could cost hospital doctors many thousands of euro in annual pay resumed at the Labour Relations Commission yesterday.
Non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) say the rosters, which would mean at least part of their basic working week would take place outside normal daytime hours, would deprive them of training opportunities during the busiest part of the day.
However, an analysis of how NCHDs are paid, prepared by the Health Service Employers' Agency, shows they could also lose large amounts of overtime earnings just two years after they succeeded in winning a substantial overtime deal.
The analysis was prepared for the Public Service Benchmarking Body and anticipates the current dispute, saying the reduction in the working hours of NCHDs will require full co-operation from them and their union, the Irish Medical Organisation.
The IMO reacted angrily in July to the introduction in some hospitals of new rosters which, it said, had been done without any attempt to seek its co-operation.
Limited strikes followed in Waterford Regional Hospital and the Midland General Hospital, Tullamore, and the current talks in the LRC resulted from this.
In the meantime, NCHDs balloted by a 97 per cent majority nationwide for industrial action up to and including strike action if the current dispute is not resolved.
Overtime has long been a key issue among NCHDs.
Up to May 2000, they worked exceptionally long hours - 77 a week on average - for rates of pay which, as they saw it, did not reflect the amount of work they were doing.
When they threatened to go on strike that year they won a deal which saw the pay, between basic and overtime, of the average NCHD rise by over 50 per cent, according to the HSEA figures.
Currently an NCHD at the middle of the pay range (registrar, year three) is on a basic of €797.41 per week before tax for working normal daytime hours.
If he or she does the average 38 hours a week overtime estimated by the HSEA at the lowest overtime rate (time-and-a-quarter) this brings in an extra €971.28 a week before tax.
Taking the doctor out of the hospital for some daytime hours and moving part of the basic week out of this period would have the effect of reducing overtime payments.
Even a reduction of an hour a day in overtime would cost the NCHD €128 in overtime before tax.
This is illustrated by the case of NCHDs working in accident & emergency.
Although they work in a particularly stressful setting, they earn less than their counterparts because the introduction of shifts has cut overtime in these departments, so that they only do 12 hours' overtime on average each week. By contrast their colleagues in surgery do about 50 hours' overtime a week.
NCHDs face a situation in which their working week is due to be reduced in line with an EU directive, a development which the IMO supports.
By the end of this decade the working week has to be reduced to 48 hours.Therefore NCHDs face a dramatic loss of overtime payments even without changes in the timing of their basic working week.
The introduction of a shift system which reduces the amount of overtime which needs to be worked in the first place could be seen as an inevitable part of this development, as the HSEA sees it.
Doctors, for their part, would see it as a worsening of their conditions.
The IMO is adamant that what is motivating NCHDs in the current dispute is the loss of daytime training opportunities. If NCHDs were motivated by money they would not be in Ireland in the first place, it says.