Significant progress was reported last night in talks between health service management and the Irish Medical Organisation in the Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors' dispute.
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, and officials at the Department of Health and Children have indicated they are willing to phase in the 48-hour week for these doctors well before the 13-year deadline as part of an overall reorganisation of hospital-based health care. The Health and Safety Authority is also to carry out a review of the existing system.
The IMO industrial relations executive, Mr Fintan Hourihan, confirmed that there was "a broad measure of agreement" on the approach needed by both sides, but declined to give details.
A senior Health Service Employers' Agency negotiator, Mr Pearse Costello, said that both sides would continue their contacts next week and he was also hopeful that a breakthrough was possible.
There are two separate but related issues in the talks. One is the phasing-in of the shorter working week from the current 65 hours to 48, and the other is a review of the 1997 agreement between the IMO and the Department of Health and Children under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
Sources close to the talks say the Department is willing to look at extra posts to help reduce the working week, but it wishes to do so in the context of the Medical Manpower Forum, on which a wide range of bodies are represented. The Department is understood to want independent consultants examining existing working conditions, including hours on call and rosters.
The IMO is understood to be willing to accept this in principle, provided terms of reference can be agreed. One saving the Department hopes to make is on the amount of time spent on call. The union is not opposed to such a system, provided the basic principle is not breached that people are paid when they are working.
