Sir, - The dispute about pensions between the Department of Health and those hospital consultants who retired before 1988 continues, with few signs of settlement.
Instead of receiving 50 per cent of their successors' salary, they receive less. The last negotiated agreement on salaries and conditions of service was in 1991. The parties were the Department of Health, the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA). there were no discussions on pensions. The pension element of the agreement was included in an overall package deal by the Department. Pension calculations were based on a sum that was £3,000 less than the salaries of the consultants' successors. A letter from the Department of Finance (1996) stated that where a person has 40 years' service, his/her pension will be 50 per cent of the equivalent serving grade providing that the nature of the job is the same.
A legal challenge was made in the Dublin District Court in 1998 by a retired Cork surgeon. The judge found against the plaintiff on the grounds that, although the jobs of the surgeon and his successor were fundamentally the same, the contract signed by the latter was different. The decision may be appealed.
To make matters worse, several small salary increases, agreed to in the 1991 contract, have been paid to all active consultants and those who retired after 1991 - but not to the pre-1988 retirees, on the basis of the legal challenge and possible appeal. This decision is taken seriously. It is felt that this discrimination is unconstitutional and illegal. It threatens our rights to legal redress and puts unfair pressure on the retired group. There are about 400 of these retired doctors. Many are in their late 70s or more, with an increasing number of widows.
Dr J. V. McCooey founded the Retired Consultants Group in 1995. It has, of course, no negotiating rights and depends on the IMO and IHCA to fight its corner. Many of the retired group are either present or past members of one or the other medical organisations.
Mr Martin has many very serious problems in the Health Service. This dispute could easily be resolved by paying the agreed back pay, with a review and discussion of the pension section of the 1991 agreement, which never occurred then, as noted by the judge in the summing-up of the surgeons' legal case. - Yours, etc.,
W. D. Linehan, MD, FRCPI, Retired Physician, College Park, Castleknock, Dublin 15.