The Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs has called on the Department of Health to examine the fees charged by family doctors to see if they are justified.
The call from Ms Carmel Foley follows publication of the Forfás report, which showed doctors' fees increased by an average of 7.6 per cent during the euro changeover period.
"I think that is something the Department of Health needs to examine. There is a cynical view abroad that their fees went up because the Department of Health introduced free medical care for all those over 70 and doctors would have lost out as a result. A lot of that money from older people, who visit the doctor more often, was going straight into the pocket of the GP, I suspect. It was just very handy money," Ms Foley said.
She accepted doctors have to pay high medical indemnity insurance but said it was time for GPs and others who put their prices up during the changeover to explain their price increases.
It was significant, she added, that the professions did not sign up to her office's voluntary euro code under which businesses undertook not to "rip people off" during the changeover. They had been found by the report to have increased their prices. These included dentists, doctors, publicans and the travel trade.
Ms Foley said the State had to examine its conscience to see if it was inadvertently keeping prices high in some sectors. She cited as an example the role the State has in granting publicans licences.
"They \ are a very protected sector of the economy and they are not repaying with good gratitude the fact that they are privileged in being granted a licence by the State," she said, adding that the price of soft drinks in pubs was "astronomical".
The Consumers Association of Ireland has sought a meeting with the Tánaiste to discuss the findings, which its chairman Mr Michael Kilcoyne said were not unexpected. He said Ms Harney would have to take serious action. "That may involve imposing maximum price orders and in some cases rolling back the charges that are being imposed today," he said.
Mr Stephen McMahon, of the Irish Patients' Association said he had received reports of some doctors increasing their prices by up to 12 per cent.