A "significant" number of hospital consultants are set to sue the State over millions of euro in unpaid salary rises they claim are owed to them since 2008.

Ireland’s best doctors are being forced to seek work elsewhere because of deteriorating working conditions and severe budget cuts, a leading representative body has claimed.

THE chief executive of the Health Service Executive has said that funding for the health services will now be directed at services “which have demonstrated that they are working well.”