 In 1957 negotiations between the IMA and the Irish government over employment conditions for doctors broke down with the government announcing that the IMA was not a registered trade union and so could not be recognised as a negotiating partner.A debate began then within the organisation, between those who wanted to register as a trade union and those who felt that industrial trade union membership was incompatible with being a professional association with clinical/patient responsibilities or what was sometimes previously termed as a "learned profession".In 1962, the Irish Medical Union was established, initially, as a sub-section of the IMA and then became a break-away group under the presidency of Dr Johnny Cox, a general practitioner and farmer in Delvin, Co. Westmeath.