The authorities' failure to repay money to people who were collectively overcharged by about €18 million for medicines has been strongly criticised by the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Fine Gael TD Mr John Perry called on the Minister for Health to refund the money to taxpayers, who had "effectively been ripped off by the State by an average of nearly €100 each".
Mr Perry's remarks followed a discussion at the committee yesterday of the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for 2001. The report found that a replacement scheme for the Drug Refund Scheme and the Drugs Cost Subsidisation Scheme was introduced nine months before regulations permitted.
A delay in making regulations to give legal authority to the new Drugs Payment Scheme resulted in both the overpayment and underpayment of subsidies to people who availed of the scheme.
It is estimated that more than 175,000 households were underpaid by in the region of €18 million. But, according to the report, due to an informal Government decision dated July 17th, 2002, it was not intended to make refunds. The amount of overpayments is not known.
Mr Perry said he was appalled that taxpayers had been treated with such contempt. In some cases the overpayments were for small amounts, while in others the sums were up to €250.
"The State is not slow to extract money from citizens through the myriad of taxes that it imposes. However, when it comes to paying back money that is owing to citizens, there tends to be a tardiness and reluctance that is contemptuous," Mr Perry added.
The committee also heard yesterday that GPs received about €12 million under the medical card scheme last year to care for 15,200 patients who did not exist.
The discrepancy was discovered as a result of the extension of automatic medical card eligibility to people aged 70 and over, according to Mr Michael Kelly, secretary-general of the Department of Health and Children.
He said that health boards initially discovered more than 15,200 duplicate entries and entries for deceased people on their lists of holders of medical cards. Further inaccuracies came to light and some 25,300 medical cards have to date been removed from the system.
Mr Kelly said that the extent of the overpayments would not be determined until the review of the entire General Medical Schemes list (the medical card scheme) was completed next month. When the final position was known, arrangements would be made to seek recovery from the doctors concerned.