The Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has forced the HSE to remove details from its website of individual yearly payments under State schemes to self-employed health professionals, including dentists and GPs.

The DPC had threatened action against the HSE unless payment details to individual dentists under the medical card system were removed from the website. The DPC said it was a serious issue.

The HSE subsequently decided to remove individual payment details of all health professionals in receipt of payments from the medical card and other schemes from its website.

The DPC took action on the matter following a complaint from the Irish Dental Association (IDA) about the publication of the payment details in terms of data protection. The IDA argued there was no legal justification for publishing individual payments to dentists.

The threatened action by the DPC followed a complaint to it from the Chief Executive of the IDA, Fintan Hourihan, who argued that there was no statutory basis or public interest justification for the publication of the payments.

In a letter to the HSE, released through the Freedom of Information Act , Mr Hourihan said dentists were concerned that they had not given consent to the publication.

The IDA argued that publishing individual dentist payments can give a misleading impression that they are earning inflated levels of income.

The doctors union, the IMO has also frequently argued that publishing individual GP payments from the State, which can run to over €500,000 per annum in some cases, can give a misleading impression that individual doctors are personally earning huge sums, when in fact the bulk of their income usually goes towards overheads, such as employing practice staff.