Harney not prepared to let consultant contract talks continue to drag on

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney warned last night that she was not prepared to let talks on a new consultant contract drag.

“I will shortly be bringing specific proposals to Government in relation to the talks impasse, so that Government policy will be implemented to ensure equitable access to our public hospitals for all patients and to recruit much-needed consultants,” she said.

Ms Harney said she was very disappointed that no progress had been achieved in the discussions on a new consultants’ contract and, while she would prefer to see, even at this late stage, constructive negotiations between all the parties involved, she was not prepared to allow fruitless talks to continue.

Labour health spokes- woman Liz McManus said the chance of the talks being successful had been diminished considerably by the wilful determination of Ms Harney to finance private hospitals on public lands.

The Government has proposed that in future public hospital consultants should be salaried employees working a 39-hour week, with no right to outside private practice.

Last January, the board of the Health Service Executive (HSE) decided to stop creating posts that allowed full-time public hospital consultants treat patients in private hospitals and said the decision was made to improve public patients’ access to hospital care.

The HSE said it concurred with the independent talks chairman, Mark Connaughton BL, that for talks to resume there would have to be an unequivocal agreement between the parties that there would be unconditional negotiations for a defined period.

Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association (IHCA) secretary general Finbarr Fitzpatrick said the organisation would not be commenting further on the talks until after its extraordinary general meeting on Sunday.

As well as discussing the contract talks, the IHCA is also proposing a motion of no confidence in the HSE board and senior management.

He described the HSE as a “monolith” and said consultants were finding it extremely difficult to deal with the authority.