Striking public health doctors are to consider escalating their strike action next week, it emerged today.
Yesterday evening, talks between the public health doctors and the Health Service Employers Agency (HSEA) at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) ended without any progress.
The public health doctors, represented by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), are now in their third week of strike action and have the support of craft groups within the IMO including GPs and consultants.
The participation of craft groups in the strike is understood to be under consideration.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Micháel Martin, said this afternoon that he hoped that the HSEA and the public health doctors would return to the LRC early next week for talks.
However, an early return to talks may be unlikely as public health doctors were extremely disappointed when the HSEA failed to table an expected offer during talks yesterday.
Mr Martin claimed today that there was a substantial offer on the table but the IMO have dismissed this saying that the offer is related to benchmarking and is also part of the national agreement sustaining progress. The IMO say that no improved offer has been made to the public health doctors since 1994.