IHCA to launch legal challenge over new-entrant consultant pay

The case will challenge the “discriminatory salary scales” which have been imposed on new-entrant consultants who have the same duties and responsibilities as their colleagues, the organisation stated. New-entrant consultants with 10-to-15 years of postgraduate specialist training are commencing work on salaries 25 per cent lower than their older consultant colleagues, the IHCA has underlined.

Commenting on the decision, Dr Tom Ryan, President of the IHCA, said: “We have little choice but to launch this challenge on behalf of all our members. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of permanent consultant posts vacant and that highly trained specialist doctors continue to emigrate, the State has persisted with its deliberate and incomprehensible decision to select new entrant Consultants for dramatic salary cuts. This action is a blatant breach of employment equality legislation which prohibits such discrimination. The Association will always support and insist on equal pay for equal work.”

The IHCA is currently surveying its public contract members to assemble “robust statistical evidence” in support of these cases. Any consultants who may not have received an invitation to complete the survey are invited to contact the IHCA “without delay”.