Minister for Health Mary Harney has reaffirmed that negotiations on a new contract for hospital consultants, which have been under way for four years, will end in a fortnight.
Ms Harney said Christmas was the deadline for the talks.
Other highly-placed health management sources said that after the Christmas break there would either be an agreed contract or other arrangements would be introduced.
This is assumed to mean the Government will move unilaterally to appoint new consultants under a revised contract without the agreement of the medical bodies.
However, consultants this weekend blamed management for delays in the talks.
Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) president Dr David O'Keeffe said the real decision-makers on the management side were not in the room for the talks.
He indicated that a deal could be completed in the New Year .
Former independent talks chairman Mark Connaughton SC is to meet with management and the Irish Medical Organisation and the IHCA today and tomorrow to try to facilitate an agreement on a number of issues.
Management sources indicated that there would be no further plenary meetings between the parties.
Both management and the medical organisations have signed up to a report on the broad thrust of a new deal which was produced by Mr Connaughton in October.
However, while progress has been made in some areas, the parties remain far apart on issues such as pay, private practice rights and working hours.
Some sources said last week that the list of outstanding items had actually increased recently.
Last Thursday there was disagreement on how new clinical directors in hospitals, who will head-up teams of consultants, should be appointed.
The previous week the medical organisations rejected management proposals on monitoring private practice earnings in public hospitals to ensure that doctors complied with a 20 per cent cap.
It is understood that management has signalled to Mr Connaughton that it is prepared to increase its current pay offer of up to €216,000 in the context of an overall deal.
Management has said that IHCA proposals for salaries of up to €250,000 were "out of its range". The IMO has not publicly set out a claim.
Under the thrust of the proposed new contract, consultants would work over a longer day as part of teams. They would also work in hospitals at weekends. There would also be no distinction between public and private patients for access to out-patient diagnostic tests.
Consultants would work only in public hospitals or in planned co-located private facilities. In public hospitals four public patients would have to be seen for every private patient treated.
Dr O'Keeffe said the difficulty faced by medical organisations in the talks was that it seemed that the negotiations were being carried out by proxy. "The real decision-makers are not in the room. We are negotiating with the same administrators in the HSE who have had the fiascos in healthcare around the country over the last few months.
"And the inefficiencies and ineptitude they have shown in organising the treatment of the women who have fallen foul of these fiascos; they have brought that kind of attitude to the negotiating table."
