It comes after they last night voted unanimously in favour of holding a ballot for industrial action, up to and including strike action, next month.

The Government has been given three weeks to sort out the consultant recruitment crisis - or face potential strike action.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has threatened to ballot consultants for industrial action next month if talks don't commence to deal with the crisis in recruitment afflicting the public health services.

Hospital consultants will be balloted for strike action in September unless talks take place to address the "crisis" in consultant recruitment.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and not the Department of Health, is dictating the delivery of healthcare in Ireland, according to the outgoing president of the Irish Medical Organisation.

A psychiatrist has described cannabis as a “destructive, nasty, evil drug” and that a lot of people are trying to say it does not have negative consequences.

A doctors’ group has called for an immediate ban on alcohol sports sponsorship.

The widower of Susie Long, who died trying to reform Ireland’s two-tier health system, has claimed Health Minister James Reilly’s plan for universal health insurance is the polar opposite of what she wanted.

Massive cutbacks will wreak chaos on the public health service next year, medics have warned.

Health Minister James Reilly is under growing pressure to explain where massive budget cuts to the medical card scheme will fall amid fears that 100,000 people will lose the entitlement.

All medical records should be computerised, according to the new president of the Irish Medical Organisation, who described the current situation as a “disgrace’’.

Doctors’ union president Matthew Sadlier says the organisation will emerge from the controversy over the pay and pension package of its former chief executive with a more robust set of rules and regulations.

ONE junior doctor based in the mid-west received a staggering €200,000 in overtime payments last year – four times the average salary of a registrar.

A CHRONIC shortage of junior doctors in our hospitals is putting patients at risk and almost prompted the closure of one of the country’s largest emergency departments last week.

FEARS for personal safety and the security of their homes have prompted doctors to demand that the Medical Council remove home address details from its online database.

I WAS delighted with the media reaction to the ‘new’ transport strategy announced last week.