Senior hospital doctors criticise Minister for Health’s ‘closed-door’ engagement

Senior hospital doctors have criticised the Minister for Health over what they describe as her “closed-door” approach to engagement.The relationship between consultants and Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has grown increasingly tense in the almost two years she has had the portfolio, with the two sides at loggerheads over the evening and weekend rostering of consultants.The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), which represents some 5,000 consultants, said it had been prevented from any engagement with the Minister over the past 20 months. Prof Gabrielle Colleran, president of the IHCA, will tell members at its annual conference on Saturday that the union had met the Minister only once during her time in office – in March 2025 – despite repeated requests for further engagement.READ MORE“We believed then – and now – that the best outcomes for patients, consultants and taxpayers are achieved when we all work together. But relationships are two-way,” her opening address says.“We can control our intentions and our actions; we can control how we show up. We cannot control the intentions, actions or behaviours of others.”Colleran will tell consultants that the union went into the March 2025 meeting “with open minds” but came away “deeply disappointed that the collaborative approach we offered the Minister was not accepted or shared”.“What does it say about the relationship between the leadership of our health service and the medical profession when the organisation representing almost 5,000 hospital consultants cannot secure a discussion with the Minister for Health? This is all the more surprising given her sustained focus on consultants’ weekend rostering over the past year and a half.”[ Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: ‘I worried whether I had the objectivity to be Minister for Health’Opens in new window ]Anne O’Connor, chief executive of the Health Service Executive, was due to speak at Saturday’s conference, but the IHCA said she was “forced to cancel at short notice”. The association noted that HSE deputy chief executive Damien McCallion and former Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt had also accepted invitations to attend IHCA events earlier this year, but their attendance was withdrawn.“The IHCA stands ready to work constructively with the Minister, bringing forward clinician-led, sustainable solutions to the many challenges facing our health service. But if engagement is being systematically discouraged or prevented, that would be a matter of profound concern,” Colleran will add.Colleran will say the association is “not a party” to a case taken by two consultants in relation to the provision of private care in surgical hubs.“Portraying this case as an attempt by the Association to obstruct these surgical hubs misrepresents both the dispute and our position,” she will add.Responding to the criticisms, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Health said she has “regular engagements with the trade union that represents doctors, the Irish Medical Organisation, as well as with all other trade unions representing healthcare workers”. “The Minister would be greatly appreciative of any and all support for the provision of public only services in surgical hubs,” she said, adding that she is unable to attend the conference “owing to existing diary commitments”.“The secretary general of the Department of Health met the IHCA on 17th September to discuss the implementation of the public-only consultant contract, extended day and Saturday services and the shared challenges the increased demand and demographic pressures present for our health services and the measures being taken to respond to them,” the spokeswoman said.“Further engagements will happen in the coming weeks.”