Ms Susan Clyne:

The blockage is the Government's attitude towards consultants and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform allowing that to happen. Consultants had to go to the High Court to have their contract upheld following a decision by another former Minister for Health, Mary Harney. Ourselves and the IHCA ended up in the High Court. The current Tánaiste was Minister for Health at the time of the cuts. Everyone understood those cuts in the context of austerity but it was the targeting of this additional cut that was problematic. We believe it was a politically motivated cut. It had no basis in evidence and did not save the State a fortune by any means. In fact, it had the opposite effect in that it was devastating. When Deputy Harris was Minister for Health he attended the AGMs of the IMO and the IHCA and acknowledged and recognised that it was a mistake and said that it would be fixed but it was not. The current Minister has spoken at length on the record of the Dáil several times and at various meetings acknowledging that this is a problem. We are in contract talks at the moment that are stalled because there is no chairman.

We have to accept that people will vote with their feet. There has been a very big reliance on doctors doing the right thing for their patients, putting up with it and not taking any kind of industrial action - options that are open to many other workers in the public service. Consultants support a partnership approach. They want to see health reform. We have to get over that, accept that consultants want better services for their patients and want to advocate for their patients but also want to be treated fairly. It is the inherent unfairness that has had a toxic influence.

It is difficult for consultants to be working on a team where a consultant appointed two weeks before another consultant, and appointed before the deadline, earns 30% more than the other consultant, despite being as qualified and doing the same amount of work. It creates such a toxic feeling in the health service and it has driven morale down. Unfortunately, our trainees see it. They see how they are valued by the employer and by Government and they move along. I would like to hear from those three or four Ministers why they promised something they are now not delivering.