The Irish Medical Organisation has welcomed the decision of the European Parliament for non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) to be covered by the working time directive. This would cap the NCHDs' working week at 48 hours. At present they can be liable to over 100 hours.
The parliament has called for the directive to be extended to NCHDs within four years. The Irish and British governments have blocked proposals to reduce the current phasing-in period of 13 years at meetings of the EU Council of Ministers. Yesterday a spokesman for the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, said it had no comment to make on the parliament's vote.
However, the IMO can be expected to use it as a lever in current negotiations with the Department and the Health Service Employers' Agency to reduce working hours, improve staffing levels and provide significant overtime payments for doctors required to work more than 39 hours.
The IMO's director of industrial relations, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said yesterday the parliament's vote sent "a clear statement to the Irish Government that working hours for doctors need to be brought into line with those worked by everyone else, sooner rather than later."
The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, said it was not surprising that the European Parliament had a different opinion from the European Commission on the issue of doctors' hours. The decision of the Commission would now have to be awaited.
In the meantime, discussions were continuing between the Department of Health and Children and the IMO as to how some of the issues raised by hospital doctors could be addressed.