asked the Minister for Health if any reply has been received from the Irish Medical Association as a result of his recent offer to meet them if the boycott on certain posts is lifted; and if the boycott in question has been lifted.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Irish Medical Association: Lifting of Boycott.
20.
I have received no recent communication from the Association in reply to my offer to meet them if their boycott on posts in the service of local authorities was lifted.
The ban notice has been repeated in the December issue of the Association's Journal which has just appeared.
Does the Minister not realise that the controversy proceeding in the public Press between himself and the I.M.A. as to who paid for his dinner in Killarney is doing nothing to improve public relations in this country? Would the Minister not now consider waiving all past misunderstandings and would he not accept his responsibility as Tánaiste and Minister for Health and summon this body of men to a friendly meeting and try to extinguish all the disedifying misunderstandings that disfigure this correspondence?
I am as deeply sensible as the Deputy of the undesirability of continuing this controversy in the public Press. But the Deputy ought to remember that I did not initiate the controversy, that I did not write an open letter to the Press, and that his remonstrances in that regard ought to be addressed to the proper quarter. However, in relation to the other matter, I can only deal with persons who are unequivocal in their statements. I have been told that there is no ban. That is what the Irish Medical Association say now. Every member of the profession knows, however, that a ban is intended whenever what has been described as an "important notice" appears in the Irish Medical Association's Journal. As I have indicated already, when the Association cease to advertise the fact that there is a ban, I am quite ready to meet its representatives and to meet them on the most friendly terms possible.
I suggest tomorrow afternoon would be a suitable occasion. There will be no publication between then and now.
We will see what appears in the January issue of the Irish Medical Journal.
Why not tomorrow afternoon, and then nothing will appear?