Irish GPs (general practitioner/family doctor) are being paid almost five times more to administer the seasonal flu vaccine to patients than their counterparts in the UK. In related news on excessive payments from Irish public funds, it was disclosed that the members of the Commission on Taxation were paid fees of over €500,000.

Minister for Health Mary Harney referred to the price differential on flu vaccines on Monday at a conference in Dublin, pointing out that GPs in Ireland get paid €38.95 to administer the seasonal flu vaccine to patients. In the UK GPs get paid £7.51 (€8.30) for doing the same job.

Last week the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the British Medical Association agreed that GPs in the UK and Northern Ireland will be paid £5.25 (€5.80) to administer each dose of the pandemic H1N1 vaccine. It is expected each patient will be given two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart, bringing the total payment to GPs per patient in the UK to £10.50.

The Department of Finance on Monday provided details on payments made to the 14 members of the Commission on Taxation, which reported earlier this month. Two members refused to accept fees.

Labour Party finance spokesperson Joan Burton TD had requested the data.

The retired head of the Revenue Commissioners, Frank Daly, was paid almost €120,000 and was also likely drawing a full public service pension.

He was paid fees of €1,000 for each half day or more, or €500 where a commitment of less than half a day was required.

Daly agreed to a 20 per cent reduction in fees from September 2008, which resulted in a deduction of more than €20,000 in fees. His fees reflect a commitment of more than 120 days between March 2008 and August 2009.

Other members of the commission were paid €700 for more than half a day or €350 for less than half a day. The commission was established in February 2008 and was in existence for a little over 16 months.

Two members of the commission, Brendan Hayes of trade union SIPTU and Feargal O’Rourke of PricewaterhouseCoopers, requested that no fees at all be paid to them and the return for both is nil.

The highest fees paid to an ordinary member was €46,500 to Micheál Collins of the department of economics, Trinity College Dublin. His payment indicates that he committed some 66 full days to the commission over 18 months. It is not clear if his public salary from Trinity College was reduced to cover the time working at the commission.

The next highest fees were €41,300 paid to Mary O’Sullivan of the Irish Banking Federation (59 days); and chartered accountant Mary Walsh, who was paid €38,850 (55½ days).

The fees paid to others were: Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern, €19,600; Julie Burke, JMB Tax Solicitors, €29,750; Frank Convery, professor of environment policy at UCD, €21,700; Tom Donohue, partner in Russell Brennan Keane chartered accountants, €28,350; Eoin Fahy, KCB Asset Management, €33,950; Sinead Leech, director Integral Finance and Technology, €32,200; Con Lucey, economist, IFA, €28,350; Danny McCoy, director general of IBEC, €28,000 and Willie Soffe, Dublin Transportation Office, €36,500.

In the Dáil last night, the Government rejected a Fine Gael Bill to prevent “the culture of cronyism” in the appointment of individuals to State agencies but it was rejected by the Government.

Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar said Ministers “hold in their hands the power to appoint 6,000 people to State board positions.”

His Public Accounts Transparency Bill calls for the qualifications of all nominees to State boards with budgets of more than €1 million to be published and for all nominees for chairman of State boards or as chief executive to appear before the relevant Oireachtas committee for scrutiny.

Minister of State for Finance Martin Mansergh said it involved the Oireachtas taking executive functions on to itself in vetting and confirming boards and cut across the normal corporate governance arrangements for boards to appoint chief executive officers.

Ministers normally nominated appointees and “can be held accountable to the Oireachtas.”

“Ministerial freedom is not unfettered,” he said.

There is limited accountability in the Irish system and apart from the appointments to about 800 quangos/State agencies, a week hardly goes by without  a ministerial announcement on a new task force to advise on some issue that a minister is either unable to grasp or wants to delay a decision on.