Funding of over €75 million has been announced by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to carry out immediate refurbishment and maintenance works at hospitals across the State.
Some €5.5 million of this spending is aimed at freeing up hundreds of beds being inappropriately used in acute hospitals by elderly people who have nowhere to be discharged to.
The new allocation will be spent on purchasing long-term care beds for the elderly and young chronic sick blocking beds in the main Dublin hospitals and in Cork, Mr Martin said.
This ongoing problem was highlighted again in recent days when the accident and emergency department of Dublin's Beaumont Hospital became grossly overcrowded with patients waiting for hours on chairs and trolleys for beds while at the same time more than 80 beds in the hospital were being used by patients who were fit for discharge but had nowhere to go to.
The Minister yesterday said the funding was part of the annual health budget which had not yet been earmarked for specific projects or which had been earmarked for capital developments and had not been spent because the projects were running behind schedule.
Mr Martin said the money to buy extra long-term care beds would go to the Eastern Regional Health Authority, which funds the major Dublin hospitals, and the Southern Health Board, where bed-blocking has also been a problem at Cork University Hospital.
Much of it will be distributed in the form of subvention payments for private nursing homes, but Mr Martin said he expected better value for money from this allocation than previous ones.
A further €500,000 is being set aside for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin which was also recently at the centre of controversy when it had to postpone heart surgery on two-year-old Róisín Ruddle due to a shortage of intensive care nurses.
The money has been earmarked for "infrastructural improvements to support paediatric services research" at the hospital. In addition, €4.5 million has been allocated to the Health Research Board.
The bulk of yesterday's package, some €65 million, goes towards replacing equipment and general maintenance work, including meeting health and safety requirements at hospitals in every health board area.
New incubators are to be bought, for example, for Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe; the A&E department in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is to be refurbished; the roof is to be replaced at St Joseph's Hospital in Clonmel; windows are to be replaced at St Joseph's Hospital in Longford; and the laboratory of the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise is to be rewired.
Several other projects will also benefit.
Asked if there was any money left for other projects such as the opening of a new wing at James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, which has been lying idle, Mr Martin indicated this project would have to wait until next year. It was a matter for the 2004 estimates, he said.
Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus, said the money for long-term care beds was welcome but the amount allocated would need to be significantly increased to end "the intolerable pressure" on accident and emergency units.
Furthermore, the bulk of the funding had already been included in the health budget and therefore announced already, Ms McManus said.
"Minister Martin has clearly learned a trick or two from some of his more streetwise colleagues who have found that if you announce the same thing over and over again, it creates the impression of activity without actually having to do very much," she said.