A new system is needed for dealing with genuine claims for medical negligence in a non-adversarial way, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, has said.
Citing the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, she said something similar might be looked at for dealing with medical negligence cases to save people damaged by doctors having to go though the courts to seek redress.
"I believe we need a different forum" for dealing with genuine mistakes, she told the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children.
Her comments came in the context of the current row with the British-based Medical Defence Union, which says it does not have resources to cover historic claims which may be made in the future against hospital consultants who paid it subscriptions.
The Department of Health is attempting to assess what the MDU can pay.
Officials from the Department will travel to London next week. In the interim, hospital consultants are losing patience and will devise a new campaign of industrial action this weekend.
Ms Harney said the MDU had "behaved disgracefully" and "betrayed" Irish doctors and patients.
She wasn't going to allow them to walk away, she said.
On a separate issue she said there had been a lot of discussion about Dr Michael Neary, the former Drogheda obstetrician struck off for needlessly removing women's wombs and how this had been allowed to continue for so long.
She pointed out that medical boards in hospitals did not have powers to intervene in such cases. This needed to be looked at, she said.
Meanwhile the Tánaiste said that in future it had to be ensured that when new developments were built, there was money set aside to run them.
The breakdown of this year's capital spending would be announced shortly and would include funding for the 19 extra beds promised for Wexford General Hospital some time ago.
Two consultants resigned from the hospital management team recently over the Government's failure to provide the beds.