Doctors pay award threatened by medical card row

TÁNAISTE Mary Harney yesterday warned doctors would forgo benchmarking payments if the new, doctor-only medical cards are not issued.

“There is no question of that being paid if these cards can’t issue,” she said.

Ms Harney hit out at the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) over its failure to reach an agreement with the Government on the roll-out of the cards. She was highly disappointed the cards, announced in last year’s budget, had not been issued and raised the possibility of alternatives.

“Although the doctors voted - 90% of the GPs are in favour - we haven’t yet been able to issue those cards and we are willing and able to issue them.

“We may well give cash to patients or we may reimburse for expenditure or we may look at an insurance scheme.

“General practitioners cannot have it every way. You cannot on the one hand say we are public servants and should get benchmarking like everybody else but on the other hand we are going to block initiatives of this kind,” she said.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Ms Harney also defended her stewardship of the Department of Health one year after taking over the portfolio. But, in tandem with Health Service Executive chief Prof Brendan Drumm, she was forced to concede A&E overcrowding could not be alleviated for up to two years.

She refused to rule out a PD coalition with Fine Gael and Labour, despite Michael McDowell branding the parties a “slump coalition” which would raise taxes.

Speaking as parties prepare to renew Dáil sittings next week, Ms Harney said the PDs were an independent party prepared to share power with those they could agree a Programme for Government with.

“We don’t go into electoral pacts before elections but we remain open to going into Government with any like-minded parties if we can agree a Programme for Government, and central to that programme for Government would be issues to do with taxation, the economy and spending.”

Pressed as to whether she would rule out a Fine Gael-led Government, Ms Harney said she was neither opposed to a “Fine Gael-led Government nor to a Fianna Fáil-led Government”.

“That is the position of the Progressive Democrats and it has been the position for some considerable time and nobody should be surprised about that,” she said.