Doctors walked out of a recent Irish College of General Practioners EGM due to ‘disgust’ at the refusal to allow votes turning what should have been a genuine consultation into a mere ‘talking shop’. Regular Irish Medical Times columnist Dr Ruairi Hanley has written of his own experiences at the meeting and said the reason for the mass exodus was that members were not allowed to propose motions and vote on them, despite speaker after speaker requesting it. In effect, he said ‘democracy was suspended’.

‘The ICGP declared they were there to listen and debate. Yet in truth, an EGM without motions and without voting is a talking shop, nothing more. I also found it somewhat chilling when I listened to someone (who I don’t remember winning an election) tell us that, as paying members, we were simply not allowed to exercise basic democratic rights’, he wrote.