asked the Minister for Health whether, having regard to the fact that county managers are proposing new scales for dispensary doctors and county surgeons, he will initiate discussions with representatives of the county physicians with a view to revising their scales also.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Physicians Salary Scales.
12.
The question of the revision of salary scales for officers of health authorities is a matter for those authorities in the first instance and it would not be proper for me to initiate discussions with representatives of the county physicians regarding this matter, but there is nothing to prevent a county physician from discussing the revision of his own salary with his own health authority. Similarly, since this is a matter which affects them in common I would say that two or more county physicians might likewise discuss it in joint meeting with representatives of their respective health authorities. It is, of course, also within the competence of county physicians as a class to form themselves into a body and, having got the necessary Order from the Minister for Industry and Commerce under Section 6 of the Trade Union Act, 1941, to appoint representatives to discuss salary and conditions with the appropriate representatives of the health authorities as a whole.
I would be prepared to consider sympathetically any proposals resulting from meetings such as I have described and to sanction such proposals provided they have the consent of the health authority concerned and provided they are reasonable and are in conformity with one another.
I should say that if any county physician, entitled under the terms of his appointment to conduct a private general practice, were prepared to abandon his right to such practice and accept whole-time appointment from the health authority in the sense that county surgeons are whole-time, I, as Minister for Health, would welcome the change and would be prepared to approve an appropriate adjustment in salary proposed to me by the health authority. Such adjustment could, of course, in such circumstances apply only from a future date, but this would not preclude adjustment of salary in the interim period on the basis of his present conditions with retrospective effect to 1st August last, which is the date from which other salary adjustments in the local service have been proposed.
May I take it from what the Minister has said that he would welcome proposals with regard to this matter from representatives of the county physicians?
I certainly would. I think they are very long overdue.