Consultants' contract plans stall after resignation of key figure

Former chair for State contract negotiations with medical consultants Marguerite Bolger left to take up a judiciary position in December. Picture: Maxwells

Four months on from the resignation of the chair for State contract negotiations with medical consultants, the Department of Health has declined to say whether she will be replaced.

Uncertainty around consultants’ working conditions has been blamed as one reason for the inability of the health services to recruit in sufficient numbers to tackle rising waiting lists. 

More than 400 consultant positions are currently vacant.

Negotiations between the Irish Medical Organisation, the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association and the Department of Health have been under way since last year, but came to a halt when the independent chair Marguerite Bolger SC left to take up a position in the judiciary in December.

In mid-March, a department spokeswoman told the Irish Examiner: “The minister and the Government are currently giving consideration to appointing a replacement for the previous chair, and these considerations are ongoing.” 

However, at the last health committee meeting on April 6, Robert Watt, the department's secretary-general, said a new chair may not be appointed. 

When this statement was queried with the department, a spokeswoman declined to say if anyone had been approached to take on this role or to say how many people had been approached.

“The minister and the Government are currently giving consideration to the implementation of the Sláintecare contract,” she said this weekend.

“Department officials are also continuing to engage with the representative bodies regarding the implementation of this contract. Given the current position, it would not be appropriate to comment on the details of engagement to date or proposed next steps.” 

The contract is seen as a key part of proposed moves under Sláintecare to move private care out of public hospitals. The draft under consideration would not allow HSE consultants to also work in private hospitals or clinics.

It offers a starting salary of €189,000, increasing to a range of between €220,0000 and €250,000 under pay restoration agreements later this year.

The negotiations are also expected to address the current pay anomaly whereby consultants hired after 2012 earn less than their peers, something which the representative bodies say also adversely affects recruitment.