Attempts to introduce legislation obliging doctors to notify the Department of Justice of asylum-seekers who do not have appropriate documentation were rejected at the conference.
A Cork GP, Dr Mary Favier, said this would require doctors to become "quasi-immigration" officials, having to check the papers of an illegal before providing them with medical care. "This is unethical and unacceptable," she said.
Similar legislation was proposed in the US in the 1980s, which resulted in high-level Irish delegations making representations to US officials pointing out the effect it would have on Irish illegal immigrants.
A motion was passed calling on the IMO to reject the immigration Bill currently going through the Dail.
Dr Favier said plans by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, to amend the Aliens Act attempted to criminalise and deport aliens and made doctors "a part of that process".
Dr James Molloy, a Limerick GP, said the proposal could cause conflict in the doctor-patient relationship. "This legislation is racist and, in my opinion, contrary to human rights."
Meanwhile the IMO president, Dr Fenton Howell, tabled a motion calling for the removal of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) from the poisons register. He said someone using NRT was supposed to sign the poisons register and there were some pharmacists who insisted upon it.
Saying he was disappointed by the "paltry" rise in the price of tobacco products in the last Budget, Dr Howell called for the Government to adopt a policy which would see prices rise annually by at least 5 per cent above the rate of inflation.
He said international evidence showed that price increases resulted in falling consumption. In the past five years the tobacco industry had spent £60 million promoting cigarettes here while the Department of Health had spent just £2 million on the anti-smoking message.
Criticising RTE for transmitting programmes which promote tobacco to adolescents and children, Dr Declan Bedford said yesterday's Brazilian Grand Prix was a perfect example. "Every car is like a cigarette box and our children are watching it."