(1) Notwithstanding any other enactment, contract, arrangement, understanding, expectation, circular or instrument or other document, the Minister for Health and Children may, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, by regulation, vary, whether by formula or otherwise, the amount or the rate of payment to be made to health professionals, or classes of health professionals, in respect of any services that they render to or on behalf of a health body from the date of the regulation.

(2) Subsection (1) shall apply to the services rendered from the date of the regulation, notwithstanding that the health professionals concerned may have commenced the provision of the service prior to the date of the regulation.

(3) A regulation made under subsection (1) may fix different amounts or rates for different services, and as and from the date of the regulation, there shall be no entitlement to payment in excess of the amounts and rates so specified, although nothing in this section shall prevent any health professional from providing a service for a lesser amount or at a lower rate.

(4) Prior to making a regulation under subsection (1), the Minister for Health and Children, or, at that Minister's direction, the health body concerned, shall engage in such consultations as that Minister considers appropriate.