The Irish Medical Organisation has claimed that Ireland has no detailed plan to protect people from the avian flu virus before any pandemic begins.
After a meeting of its public health doctors today, the organisation said that the Government had failed to establish a 24-hour public health medicine service, despite repeated calls to do so.
It said the system in place for public health doctors, who work exclusively in the public service, deals only with office hours.
The IMO said that all national emergency planning documents were predicated on a 24-hour public health medicine service being available.
It said that influenza pandemics have historically taken the world by surprise, giving little time to prepare, but the present situation was remarkably different because advance warning had brought an unprecedented opportunity to prepare and lessen the effects.
However, the Health Service Executive has said the matter is an industrial relations issue. It said that an attractive package for the monitoring system was made to doctors but was not accepted. It wants the issue to go to independent arbitration.
The executive said that in the event of an emergency and public health doctors not providing the service, it would look to other health services, such as hospitals, to assist.
