Hopes are now increasing that agreement will be reached which may avert the threatened industrial action by junior hospital doctors.

The IMO has agreed to defer by a week the industrial action in protest at excessive working hours that was threatened from Wednesday pending consideration of new proposals drawn up at the LRC

The NCHD Committee of the IMO meets today to consider a series of proposals negotiated between the IMO with the HSE.

The IMO says the proposals are designed to address the IMO's concerns at the dangerously long working hours the HSE forces NCHDs to work and other issues of importance.

The proposals, which are believed to include a timetable for the enaction of EU legislation on a 48-hour working week, and a verification of current hours worked by juniors, may be put to a ballot of junior doctor members by the IMO.

An IMO spokesman said the Organisation would not have agreed to the LRC request to suspend industrial action if the proposals that were negotiated were not significant.

"Ultimately the NCHD Committee will decide on the next steps but we believe that the proposals we have negotiated are significant and go a considerable way to addressing our deep concerns on the working hours issue and on other important issues for our NCHD members."

The IMO spokesman said they welcomed the 'belated engagement on the part of the HSE' to acknowledge the problems of NCHD members and the health executive's own failures on this issue over many years'."

The industrial action was due to start with a national all-out strike of junior hospital doctors from Wednesday.