IMO may cut fees to contain pension pot row

The Irish Medical Organisation is considering reducing membership fees in an effort to contain the fallout from the row over a €10m pension package paid to its outgoing chief.

A letter from IMO president Paul McKeown to the union’s 5,000 members yesterday said the organisation’s interim management committee was going to review existing subscriptions with a view to introducing a new model.

Currently, GPs and hospital consultants pay an annual membership rate of €1,242, while public health doctors pay €882 and junior doctors pay up to €804.

Members have strenuously objected to the size of the fees since it emerged that the union agreed a €10m pension package with outgoing union chief executive George McNeice. The package could have cost the IMO up to €25m if Mr McNeice had insisted on his full contractual entitlements.

However, a potential cut in membership rates has not put a halt to plans by disenchanted doctors to take back control of the union. Dublin GP Cathal O Súilliobháin has already begun amassing members’ signatures at [e-mail] to force an extraordinary general meeting. Under the organisation’s rules, once 120 signatures are presented to the IMO, a request for an EGM must be met within 21 days.

Yesterday, Dr O Súilliobháin said many doctors had been “unhappy with their union for some time” but that the McNeice deal was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

He said doctors felt the IMO did not provide them with a service, particularly in the failure to make headway against legal obstacles to talks on professional fees. Under competition legislation, the IMO cannot negotiate with the State on behalf of GP members in relation to fees paid under state medical schemes because GPs are independent contractors.

Dr O Súilliobháin said he had paid €10,000 in membership fees since joining the IMO 10 years ago, and wondered where the money had gone.

Members were further angered to hear the president of the IMO is paid €105,000 a year. Dr McKeown said this stipend will be looked at as part of a review of corporate governance. A spokesperson for the IMO confirmed yesterday that the chairs of three committees — junior hospital doctors, public health doctors, and consultants — receive €7,500 annually while the chair of the GP committee receives €25,000, largely to cover the cost of hiring a locum.

Dr O Súilliobháin said the organisation “had not functioned properly in the eyes of many for a long time” and that “huge numbers [were] talking about leaving at the end of February”, the annual subscription renewal date. He said that while setting up a new union was unlikely “it may well come to that” particularly with Croke Park II on the horizon.

Dr McKeown’s letter reiterated the IMO plan to seek an alternative venue for its AGM, in line with members’ requests.