Sides set to settle High Court dispute over planned IMO industrial action

A settlement may be announced at the High Court today

of the dispute between the Competition Authority and Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) arising from new fee cuts announced last year.

In protest at the cuts, GP members of the IMO had threatened to withdraw from certain services but the Competition Authority initiated proceedings arguing that the planned withdrawal, announced in July 2013, breached competition law.

A number of pre-trial applications in the proceedings by the authority, and a counter-claim by the IMO arguing that it is entitled to negotiate on behalf of its members, have been before the courts since last July.

The full hearing of the proceedings, listed for three weeks, was due to open yesterday but, at the outset, Michael Cush SC, with Brian Murray SC, for the IMO, asked the judge to allow some time for discussions between the sides.

Those talks continued until 3pm when Paul Sreenan SC, with Niamh Hyland SC, for the authority, said the sides had reached agreement "in principle" but the matter was complex and they wanted time to put an agreement in writing. Deadline for deal If an agreement was not signed by 11am, the case would proceed without further delay, counsel said.

Mr Justice Barrett agreed to allow the sides more time and adjourned the proceedings until 11am today.

In its action, the authority claims the IMO’s decision to withdraw the relevant services with a view to preventing the Minister for Health, James Reilly, reducing the fees payable under the GMS contract was prohibited under both Irish and EU competition law.

The IMO move came after the Minister announced further cuts in payments to GPs of about 7.5 per cent on average under financial emergency legislation. Emergency meeting The IMO held an emergency meeting about this issue, after which it said its GP members would withdraw from primary care teams, community intervention teams and clinical care programmes for chronic diseases and would pull out of any work not covered under the terms of their contract with the HSE.

The Competition Authority previously said it believed the proposed withdrawal of these services was directly linked to the decision of the Government to cut fees paid to GPs.

Withdrawing services, regardless of claims they may be free or pro bono, was regarded as an attempt to directly or indirectly fix the fees paid to GPs by the Government under the GMS contract, the authority claimed.

It said self-employed GPs were subject to competition law, unlike employees who may act collectively, represented by a trade union.

The IMO said allowing GPs the right to be represented by their trade union in their negotiations with Government on services covered by the medical card and other services for public patients was “a matter of fairness and logic”.