GPs were paid nearly €549m for treating medical card patients last year.
Some 37 doctors received more than €500,000 each.
Details released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act reveal 2,880 individual GPs across Ireland were paid a total of €548.6m under the medical-card scheme last year.
This includes practice-support payments they received from the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Three Dublin-based GPs got more than €900,000 each.
While 155 GPs got more than €400,000, and the average payment to a doctor was €190,000.
On top of these figures, the out-of-hours services in Ireland were paid €16.8m last year.
Dr Greg Kelly is a member of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO)
He is defending the payments.
"What we're talking about here is not the doctor's salaries, it's the amount of money paid into the doctor's practice for running the entire practice and to pay all the staff.
"In some cases there may be six or eight doctors working in a practice.
"There maybe a number of nurses".
Reporting by Eoghan Murphy
