IMO Conference: Dr Muiris Houston reflects on this year's gathering of the doctors' trade union, the IMO
The craft group who most dominated this year's doctors' meeting were the country's general practitioners, who had worked themselves into something of a lather over the new Harney brand of "doctor-only" medical cards in the run-up to the conference.
Having thrown down the gauntlet and said they would not be signing up the 200,000 patients expected to benefit from the initiative, they gathered to keenly listen to the Health Minister's words.
But the lady was not for turning. In her firm, no-nonsense style she told the conference that doctors needed to actively engage in health service reform.
"Doctors are central to the reform process. Nothing will happen without you," she said.
But on the substantive issue of medical cards, she wanted to know why GPs would not want to help four times as many people with her proposal compared to their desire to see the money spent on increasing the number of "full" medical cards.
GP leader Dr Martin Daly has argued strongly that medical card benefits were much broader than merely seeing a doctor.
The cost of medication, access to free hospital care and the prospect of dental and ophthalmic benefits were being sacrificed on the rock of political expediency.
But Ms Harney countered with the opinion that patients would not appreciate being told their doctors were insisting they continue to cough up for each surgery visit and house call.
And anyway, hadn't it been "a leading member of the IMO" that had suggested the whole idea of a half-card in the first place?
This produced a chorus of "it wasn't me's" from the members of the organisation's GP committee.
Could the Minister have imagined the encounter or was there an agent provocateur in their midst? The mystery remained unsolved as the mist descended from the surrounding Macgillycuddy Reeks.
But despite the impasse, there was little appetite for widespread industrial action on the issue.
Family doctors seemed confident that without their co-operation in actively "signing on" the new category of medical-care patient, the Minister's plans would not progress.
Otherwise it was a relatively quiet meeting marked by a historical first: there was a unanimous welcome for the appointment of Asam Ishtiaq, a senior registrar in general and vascular surgery at University College Hospital Galway, as the first ever non-EU graduate to become president of the IMO.