The HSE has been ordered to pay an estimated €250,000 to 20 doctors working in sexual assault trauma units to address its delay in implementing higher on-call rates for weekend work. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said it was waiting for confirmation of the exact amounts due but the doctors will receive about €10,000 each in the wake of the Labour Court recommendation.The case arose after the IMO informed the HSE in 2020 that, due to an anomaly, the on-call rates being paid at weekends were lower than those being paid to the doctors on call during the week.The following April an agreement was reached and the HSE committed to addressing the issue from that September. The Department of Public Expenditure, however, declined to fund the increase, the court heard, and it was suggested to the IMO that a claim be submitted under sectoral bargaining arrangements, which the union agreed to in the expectation that the higher rates would then be paid from February 1st, 2022.The department then deemed the claim ineligible to be submitted under sectoral bargaining, and the process stalled until it was finally approved in June 2024, four years after the union had raised the issue.When the new rates were confirmed in a Government circular, the IMO raised the issue of retrospection but the HSE said it had never committed to that and would not be paying it. That issue then became the subject of conciliation talks at the Workplace Relations Commission last November before being referred on to the Labour Court when no agreement could be reached.The union sought retrospection to February 2022 when it expected the higher rates to be implemented but the Labour Court granted it instead to October 2023 when a previous meeting on the issue had taken place at the court and the HSE had committed to resolving it.