Hospitals could run into chaos over consultant pay tier dispute

HOSPITALS could be plunged into chaos as consultants joined nurses in threatening industrial action over a pay dispute.

Consultants hired after October 1, 2012 are paid 30% less than colleagues employed before that date, and there was also a 10% cut imposed on all new entrants to the public service during the recession.

Consultants claim this has left many of them earning €30,000 to €55,000 less than their colleagues – despite doing the same job.

A survey of Irish Medical Organisation consultants showed 63% of respondents would consider taking industrial action in the new year to force the Government’s hand.

Irish Medical Organisation president Dr Peadar Gilligan called on Health Minister Simon Harris to resolve the issue and said the post-2012 pay cuts posed a risk to patient safety.

‘Industrial action is the last step we would choose to take but our members are at the end of their tether,’ said Dr Gilligan, an emergency medicine consultant.

‘This issue has been longfooted by the Government for too long. The Minister for Health has recently confirmed his view that we need a process to resolve this issue and we are now calling on him to move to set up this process immediately.

‘We are in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis amongst consultants with almost 500 unfilled consultant positions across the country and this is directly impacting on patient care.

‘It is impossible to justify a two-tier pay system for people doing the same job with the same qualifications and it is impossible to hire the consultants we need as long as we persist in paying them 30% less than their colleagues.’

The threat comes as nurses ballot for industrial action in relation to issues over understaffing in the health service.

Yesterday, Mr Harris said the Government was keen to examine the issue of pay disparity.

Earlier this year, hundreds of consultants took legal action against the Government in respect of a breach of the 2008 Consultant Contract that resulted in a settlement that will cost the State around €200million in retrospective payments.

Minister Harris told RTÉ’s News At One there are ‘more consultants working in the Irish health service this year than last’. He said: ‘I accept we have more to do but it is quite frustrating when the conversation seems to be set in a context as though we have fewer doctors.

‘There is something that needs to be done here in relation to the pay equity issue. We have some brilliant doctors working in the health service who feel frustrated that they’re working at such a differential pay level.

‘In relation to nurses, my message is clear,’ continued Mr Harris, who said that nurses have signed up to a public sector pay agreement, and that any issues have been referred to the ‘oversight group’.

He said: ‘I think that is the appropriate place to resolve all of these issues and I know both parties to the dispute have made various assertions to that body. But I think the oversight body is the appropriate one.’

‘Keen to examine pay disparity’