The HSE's Director of Human Resources Barry O'Brien has confirmed that new salary scales to apply to hospital consultant contracts were formally issued yesterday.
He said academic consultants who currently earn in excess of the public service cap of €200,000 would be included in the new pay scales.
However Mr O'Brien was not in a position to give details of the new scales.
He said the HSE had requested a formal reply from the hospital consultants confirming they were signing up to the Labour Relations Commission proposals by Monday, 1 October.
Asked whether he was concerned that the consultants might be pulling back from the LRC proposals negotiated last week, he said he was confident that they fully understood what they were committing to at the talks.
He said they had committed to have detailed engagement and to seek approval of members to give effect to the LRC proposals.
Mr O’Brien said the issue of consultants pay was a matter for Government and Government pay policy. He said the decision had been taken, and was being confirmed with the issuing of the new salary scales.
