Minister for Health Mary Harney has said that up to 2,000 new hospital consultants will be appointed in the years ahead following the agreement last night of a new contract for senior hospital doctors.
Under the deal reached between health service management and the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA), senior doctors will work over an expanded day and be present in hospitals for a number of hours at weekends.
In future, appointments for outpatient and diagnostic services will be on the basis of medical need and private patients will not have any priority. As part of the new contract hospital consultants will be paid up to €240,000 per year.
Ms Harney said that the deal represented a new era for the health service and that patients would be the winners.
However, the Irish Medical Organisation, which represents about 850 consultants, is not party to the deal at present.
HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm said: "We have passed another important milestone along the road to transforming our public health service."
The IHCA said that it would begin consulting members on the contract and that it was confident about the outcome.
The new contract for hospital consultants is one of the key elements of the Government's healthcare reforms and has been in negotiation for more than four years. The deal will see a cap of 20 per cent placed on the number of private patients treated in public hospitals. The new €240,000 salary will apply to consultants working exclusively in the public sector.
Doctors opting for limited private practice rights in public and co-located private hospitals would receive €220,000.
