Opening Address Brendan Whelan In Search of an Appropriate European Fiscal Framework Catherine Mathieu and Henri Sterdyniak Relative Income Poverty: Learning from the Best-Performing Countries Tim Callan and Brian Nolan Ireland's Health Care System: Some Issues and Challenges Anne Nolan and...

In Ireland, approximately 30 per cent of the population (medical cardholders) receive free GP services while the remainder (non-medical cardholders) must pay for each visit. In 1989, the manner in which GPs were reimbursed by the State for their medical cardholder patients was changed from...

A variety of recent reports and strategy documents have highlighted the intimidating range of challenges facing Ireland-s health system as it seeks to improve its performance. In this short paper we cannot deal with these in any comprehensive fashion, but instead focus on three specific issues....

Contents Foreword - Frances Ruane Chapter 1: Monetary Policy and Financial Stability, David Miles Chapter 2: The Stability and Growth Pact: A Fiscal Framework Whose Time Has Come?, Jim O'Leary Chapter 3: Fiscal Policy: Some Lessons from Crises of the Past, Joe Durkan Chapter 4: Restructuring...

This presentation, by Anne Nolan and Brian Nolan, examines three key aspects of Irelands health care system. It begins by taking an overall view and benchmarks the Irish system against that in 21 other countries. In general they characterise the performance of the health care system as...

This paper examines the determinants of general practitioner (GP) utilisation patterns in Ireland over the period 1987-2001. Using three different micro-data sets, the influence of socio-economic factors as well as health status variables on the demand for GP visits is analysed. A particular...

The extent to which the cost of obtaining health care influences the utilisation of GP and other health services is a frequently analysed topic. A key issue concerns the extent to which access to private health insurance and/or eligibility for free public health services results in differences...