THE Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, has used official Department notepaper for invitations to Fine Gael £100 a head dinner where guests can meet the Taoiseach. Medical doctors are among those asked to support the function.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, and the Minister of State Ms Eithne Fitzgerald had to apologise to the Dail this week for using official Government note paper for invitations to a Labour fund raising lunch.
At the lunch Mr Quinn would be available to answer questions on the unpublished Finance Bill. Mr Quinn accepted responsibility and said the letter "should have gone out on Labour notepaper".
Mr Noonan's letter of February 20th is on notepaper bearing the harp symbol. It is headed "Office of the Minister" and "Department of Health".
In it he says that "on behalf of the Fine Gael party" he is hosting a dinner for the Taoiseach in the Limerick Inn on March 22nd.
Tickets will cost £1,000 for a table of 10 or £100 each and "receipts will be credited to the Fine Gael Party".
Mr Noonan says "I would very much appreciate your support for this function".
In response to a query from The Irish Times about this letter and the use of ministerial note paper for a such a function, Mr Noonan confirmed that the dinner was taking place and added "All correspondence from the Minister for Health issues on Department of Health notepaper because Michael Noonan TD is the Minister for Health."
The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association and the Irish Medical Organisation were contacted about the propriety of the Minister personally inviting doctors to Fine Gael fund raisers.
The secretary general of the IHCA Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, a former general secretary of Fine Gael, said "Any medical doctor receiving an invitation on headed paper from the Minister for, Health might feel unfairly constrained to accept the invitation. You could argue that it is inappropriate for such invitations to be sent on Departmental headed paper and that it would be more appropriate to have them sent on party headed paper.
But Dr Cormac Macnamara of the IMO disagreed, saying he would have "no difficulty" with such an invitation and he thought this would be the attitude of most doctors who "would be interested in meeting the Minister for Health".
There was "nothing unethical about it".
But "if the implication was that you would qualify for a special favour that would be different", Dr Macnamara said.
He would be "quite happy to support any of the democratic parties". The use of headed paper "does not make any difference".
The Taoiseach said in the Dail on Wednesday, following the apologies from Mr Quinn and Ms Fitzgerald, that everybody in the House was aware that most parties were, from time to time, involved in briefing lunches which also had a fund raising element.
"There is nothing new or peculiar or odd about this. And I want to assure the House that the approach the Minister for Finance is taking on these matters is one which involves a high level of integrity on his part," the Taoiseach said.
The leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Mary Harney, yesterday called for the resignation of Ms Fitzgerald.