The State's 3,000 non-consultant hospital doctors have voted to accept a £60 million package which is worth an extra £20,000 each on average. Just over two-thirds (69 per cent) voted in favour of the deal.
However, their union, the Irish Medical Organisation, warned that many doctors were still concerned that some local hospital managers may fail to implement the deal in full.
It said any such move would be "vigorously opposed" and could be referred to a new adjudication board which will deal with disputes involving NCHDs.
Welcoming the acceptance of the package, the Minister for Health and Children moved to reassure doctors over its implementation. "The introduction of a medical manpower manager at hospital level will ensure that agreements reached nationally will be implemented in full at hospital level," Mr Martin said.
The deal originates in the threatened industrial action by NCHDs earlier this year.
About £45 million of the £60 million will go towards overtime payments following the abolition of the practice whereby the longer doctors worked, the lower the rate they were paid.
Doctors can also get a training grant worth £3,000 a year for attending courses and for other approved educational activities. Relocation fees worth about £1,000 will be paid to NCHDs moving between posts.
The Irish Medical Organisation said yesterday that unless hospital managers adopted a better approach to how they dealt with non-consultant hospital doctors "the exodus of highly skilled doctors will become more serious, especially in view of the plans announced yesterday for the National Health Service to recruit 7,500 extra consultants in the UK over the next four years.
"The NHS plan also envisages the establishment of an extra 7,000 beds," it added. "Both the improvements will leave Ireland even further adrift at the bottom of the OECD table in terms of the numbers of consultants per head of population and the number of beds per capita."