Calls for the establishment of a redress board for women damaged by former Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary will not be considered until after an inquiry is complete, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, said yesterday.
Ms Harney said the Government had appointed Judge Maureen Harding Clark to carry out the inquiry into what happened to women at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda and her report was due in March.
When she had received this report she could then consider the appeal by Patient Focus, the group representing former patients of Dr Neary, and Opposition TDs, for a redress board.
There were renewed calls for Ms Harney to establish such a facility following a meeting of Patient Focus, and attended by local TDs, in Drogheda on Monday night.
At that meeting members of Patient Focus said they had written to Ms Harney in early November setting out why a redress board should be established and requesting a meeting to discuss it.
They said they hadn't even received an acknowledgement.
Yesterday, however, Ms Harney insisted she had replied to the letter.
Speaking in Galway, she added that she would meet Patient Focus after she had received the report.
"I've already expressed since taking office my total sympathy and support for the women that were so badly affected," she said.
"When I receive the report, then I will be in a position to meet with Patient Focus and to have a substantive meeting with them and to discuss the outcome of what should arise in the context of that report.
"I think to do anything before I receive the report would be wrong, because I wouldn't have all the information," she said.
Patient Focus insisted last night it never received the Tánaiste's reply.
The Independent Cavan/Monaghan TD Mr Paudge Connolly and Green Party leader Mr Trevor Sargent will call for the immediate adjournment of the Dáil when it resumes this afternoon to discuss the necessity of a redress board.
Dr Neary, who practised at the hospital from 1974 to 1998, was struck off the medical register in 2003 for professional misconduct over the unnecessary removal of the wombs of 10 patients.
Up to 100 women would be seeking compensation if a redress board was established.
Patient Focus said such a board is necessary because many patients' files are missing, while others are outside the time limit in which it is possible to sue in such cases.