Contracts will be signed for the construction of private hospitals on eight public hospital sites within the next "couple of weeks", Minister for Health Mary Harney has said.
In response to a call from Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, not to sign contracts for the new hospitals before the general election, Ms Harney yesterday insisted the Government's controversial plan to allow private hospitals to be built on the sites of public hospitals across the State would go ahead. "I believe it's important that we proceed with this," she said.
While she accepted the plan to build these hospitals was not in the programme for government, she said it had been approved by the Government almost two years ago.
The hospitals at which private facilities will be co-located are the Mid-Western Hospital in Limerick, Waterford Regional Hospital, Cork University Hospital, Sligo General Hospital and St James's Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, Connolly hospital and Tallaght hospital in Dublin.
Ms Harney's plan is to free up 1,000 beds in public hospitals for public patients by having the private patients normally accommodated in them moved to the adjacent private facilities when they are built.
She said in this way more beds could be provided at less cost and more quickly, with the new beds available in three years. "This is about common sense. It's not about ideology, it is about putting patients first," Ms Harney said.
"I do not believe that we should turn our back and walk away from private investment in healthcare just because it isn't compatible with the ideology of the Labour Party which is very outdated in today's world."
The "best commercial terms" would be paid by the developers for leasing the land on which the private facilities would be built, the Minister added.
"It is hypocritical of the Labour Party to attack this proposal when their deputy in Waterford, Brian O'Shea, lobbied me to use the for-profit private clinic at Whitfield in Waterford."
Mr Rabbitte had said private developers in talks with the Health Service Executive about building these co-located hospitals should think carefully about committing to doing so just before an election, as if Labour and Fine Gael were in power after the election they would scrap the plan. The Green Party is also opposed to the plan.
However the HSE insisted in The Irish Times Health Supplement last month that legally binding agreements for the co-location of the private hospitals would be signed on April 16th.
The five companies bidding for the eight hospital sites have been assured it will not be possible to unravel the agreements once they are signed.