The bad news is that the hospital consultants have gone into propaganda overdrive as they seek to convince us that a salary of 205,000 plus bonuses of 40,000 for overtime to work exclusively in the public hospitals is "mickey mouse money".

Of course, that statement last week was not the official reaction of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Assocation. For them, the latest sticking point in the four-year negotiations they have spun out over their new contract is a "gagging order" that, it now emerges, is very far from the code of secrecy the consultants are describing.

But while the consultants have indulged in an orgy of radio interviews and self-penned articles justifying their withdrawal from negotiations and their boycott of interview panels for 68 consultants' jobs advertised last week, the minister for health has, unusually, been less formidable than we have come to expect in painting a clear picture of just why she is so determined to win this confrontation . . . and now, at election time.

On the face of it, nobody in their right minds would take on such a powerful vested interest at a time when it's vital to portray an image of a government at ease with itself and its achievements.

No doubt Mary Harney would have liked to have seen the consultants' contracts signed up before she started knocking on doors looking for votes on the back of her pledge two years ago to reform the health service. But the consultants' intransigence against managerial control over their contractual obligations despite being paid 350million in salaries by the taxpayer . . .

has proven breathtaking.

Just why these contracts need to be reformed . . . and radically so . . . was described very clearly in last Friday's report by the Comptroller and Auditor General into the implementation of the existing consultants' contract.

It found what we all knew . . . that public patients lose out considerably in the deal that makes consultants extremely wealthy on the back of using facilities paid for by the taxpayer for their private patients.

The report found that hospital managers have too little information to satisfy themselves that consultants' contractual commitments are being met. (Coincidentally, a report by the British National Audit Office was published last week too. It also bemoaned a lack of information about the hours consultants worked. However, the contrast between consultants' pay there . . .

�110,000 ( 162,000) for a 50-hour week compared with the offer of 205,000 for a 39-hour week speaks volumes).

No wonder it is so important for the consultants to retain control over what has become their personal fiefdom . . . our hospital system.

That control has left them extremely wealthy, free to use public resources within our hospitals for their own private patients, free almost to set their own terms of employment. It is they who have become the bedrock of our unequal, two-tier hospital system . . . a fact confirmed yet again in the report of the comptroller and auditor general.

The consultants have well overstepped the mark in these negotiations. If they wish to practice in the private sector, there are plenty of private hospitals . . . built thanks to tax incentives introduced by this government . . . for them to work in. If they wish to work in the public service, there is a new, generous contract for them to sign up to. Even if they wish to mix both, unlike any other profession, they can do that too . . . but for the first time within certain rules.

Mary Harney has long been considered a highly skilled communicator, but in this battle she needs to express her vision much more often and much more clearly.