Hospital consultants say they will consider withholding cooperation, if the government moves to fill vacancies without agreement from representative organisations.
The comments follow the publication of details of a pay and conditions offer made by the HSE to consultants yesterday.
Consultants reject what they call Minister for Health Mary Harney's latest unilateral deadline of April 17th.
A spokesman for the department of health today repeated that the government will move to fill hundreds of public consultant vacancies once that deadline expires on Tuesday week.
If that happens the Irish Hospital Consultants Association says it will consider not participating in the recruitment process.
Hospital consultants say they are angry and surprised that details of pay talks were leaked to the media, and claim that a stand-off is being generated by the Government to serve its political agenda.
A deal that has been tabled offers up to €205,000 annually for consultants working exclusively in the public service.
Fintan Hourihan of the Irish Medical Organisation says that this widely publicised pay offer is the first the Health Service Executive has made in two months of talks.
It is being considered as an opening offer, he said, and is unlikely to be accepted by membership.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association also believe that the deal is unworkable.
Donal Duffy of the IHCA criticised the HSE, accusing it of failing to move its position significantly since talks began.
He said that there is a view abroad that these talks were never meant to succeed.
Consultants say they will stay with the talks process as long as chairman Mark Connaughton feels progress can be made.
Mr Connaughton however says he is not optimistic that this deadlock can be quickly broken.
