Negotiations on new working arrangements for hospital consultants are resuming this morning.

The parties entered into talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) yesterday.

If they fail to reach an agreement by the Sunday deadline Health Minister James Reilly says he will take the talks to the Labour Court where they will have to reach a binding agreement within 6 weeks.

It comes after consultants were recently criticised by Minister Reilly who said he was ‘losing patience’ with one group in particular who were not making enough concessions.

Dr. Reilly said yesterday that ‘vacillation’ by one of the consultants’ organisations would not be tolerated.

He added that he has the full backing of the government to ‘expedite’ proceedings.

Consultants are the highest paid civil servants in the country.

Irish Times Industry Correspondent is Martin Wall.

He explained to Breakfast here on Newstalk what is at stake for the consultants.

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