A threat by family doctors to pull out of the mother and child scheme has been averted after the Department of Health agreed to double their payment from £88 to £176.
The Irish Medical Organisation has defended the increase agreed last week with Department officials. IMO industrial relations director Mr Conal Devine said there had been no "substantial" review of the fees since the 1980s.
General practitioners involved in the scheme provide nine visits, pre- and post-natal for the mother, as well as a check-up for the baby. It is expected now that more doctors may agree to take part following the increase in the payment.
Mr Devine said the IMO had previously threatened legal action in 1992. This was called off at the request of the Department of Health which agreed to set up a working party to examine the scheme and payment for it.
"The Working Party reported in 1994 and we were supposed to have negotiations immediately after that. But from that time the IMO has been putting pressure on various Ministers for Health to publish that report. It was not published until last year, three years after it was finalised," said Mr Devine.
Speaking about the low uptake of the scheme by doctors Mr Devine said it was "fair to say that because of the lack of priority the Department of Health attached to this since 1992 the scheme had not been as widely taken up as it might have been". He said a lot of GPs were disillusioned with it; as well as paying poorly, they felt it needed to be reorganised.