Around 4,500 junior hospital doctors are to have their €3,000 living out allowance restored in a move which will avert industrial action. The deal is worth around €6m to the doctors. It was reached tonight in talks with employers and came in advance of a court case to be taken by the doctors tomorrow. The living out allowance was abolished in 2012 and is designed to compensate the medics who have to take up new posts every six months in different hospitals, incurring rent and other expenses. It was also agreed to put in place a system for examining educational supports for the doctors. The doctors had threatened to ballot for industrial action which would have the potential to bring even more chaos to hospitals. This latest agreement follows the deal with gardai reached before Christmas which also averted industrial action and cost around €50m. Nurses are threatening a work to rule from early March unless progress is made in securing measures to improve the recruitment and retention crisis in their profession. Source
