John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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As the witnesses have been in attendance for a long time, I will be brief. An article appeared a few weeks ago in a national newspaper about general practitioners claiming treatment fees for dead medical card holders. It referred to family doctors having claimed more than €1.5 million in taxpayers' money for treating medical card holders who were dead or who do not exist. According to the article, the aforementioned figure in overpayments was identified by the Health Service Executive, HSE, last year but not a cent has been repaid and a deadline of 31 October was set for doctors who received the overpayments. While this matter was touched on briefly earlier in this meeting, I wish to delve into a little further, because I tabled a parliamentary question on it to which, in fairness, I should note I received a reply within three days.