Cases of professional misconduct among doctors like that which involved the struck-off Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary could be happening elsewhere across the State unknown to the Medical Council, its president said yesterday.
Dr John Hillery made the admission at a meeting of the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health.
"I'm afraid there are things going on out there that we know nothing about," he said.
He said there were no national audit figures. The council was reliant on brave people coming forward to highlight problems like the midwives at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, who finally blew the whistle on Dr Neary in 1998.
Dr Neary was subsequently struck off the medical register for unnecessarily removing the wombs of 10 patients.
Dr Hillery admitted the council only learned about Dr Neary's questionable practices from a report in The Irish Times, and at that stage patients had been damaged.
It was unfortunate that at present this was the way the system worked, and it was bad for patients and bad for doctors. New legislation was required.
A new Medical Practitioners Act had been promised, but it was not known when it would be enacted.
Meanwhile it was a matter of "grave concern" to the council, Dr Hillery said, that a doctor struck off for misconduct abroad could not also be struck off the Irish medical register without the council holding its own fitness-to-practise inquiry.
He was seeking legal advice on whether the doctor's certificate of registration issued here could refer to a striking off in another jurisdiction.
Dr Hillery also told the committee he believed all hospitals, both public and private, should be licensed.
The meeting heard that the council receives around 300 complaints from the public about doctors every year. Only a small number result in fitness-to-practise inquiries.