The Competition Authority has raided the offices of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) as part of an investigation into possible price fixing of fees by GPs.
The investigation centres on the fees charged for medical reports on patients, typically requested by life insurance and financial companies for clients.
The doctors fees are paid for by the companies rather than the patients, and the lack of difference between doctors' charges for these reports is at the centre of the investigation.
Such reports are usually requested by insurance or lending companies when loan or insurance amounts exceed €400,000, and due to the increase in the number of such loans in recent years, it has become a relatively lucrative area for doctors, with GPs expecting to be paid about €130 for each of these types of reports.
On Wednesday Competition Authority staff and gardaí seconded to the authority raided the Dublin offices of the IMO, the main representative body for doctors in Ireland.
A spokesman for the authority confirmed that officials visited the headquarters of the IMO at Fitzwilliam Place as part of an investigation into "possible breaches of competition law".
He said that authority staff had obtained a search warrant from a District Court judge to enter and search the premises, which would not have been given unless the judge had reasonable grounds to believe that there could have been evidence relating to the investigation.
The spokesman stressed that the warrant was not an indication of illegal activity in itself, however.
Yesterday a spokeswoman for the IMO declined to elaborate on the investigation, or the position of the organisation.
"We had a visit from the Competition Authority. There is an investigation in process, and we are co-operating with them fully."
The body is responsible for negotiating with government and State agencies on behalf of doctors, and most recently was at the centre of a row with the Government over a threat not to co-operate with the introduction of doctor-only medical cards.
The IMO is the latest professional representative body to come within an investigation of the Competition Authority.
The authority has been investigating Irish hospital consultants over a deal on consultants' fees with health insurers.
Five years ago the authority raided the offices of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association as part of the investigation.
Last year it also issued a summons to the association ordering it to hand over papers on their dealings with the two main health insurance companies, Bupa Ireland and the VHI.