Dublin's Rotunda Hospital today revealed plans to build a €120 million health campus on site.
The extension will include a public maternity hospital with private facilities, fertility and other primary care services.
Dr Michael Geary, Master of the Rotunda, said the Rotunda infrastructure only accounted for roughly half the 4.5 acre site and that a number of developments were being considered.
He said: "Patients rightly have high expectations of quality healthcare when they visit a hospital. Equally, all of our staff take great pride in being able to deliver high quality, safe care."
Dr Geary said the new healthcare campus could be open in four to five years' time. He added preliminary talks on the development have taken place the Department of Health and Children.
Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney said it was an ambitious plan and appealed for private investment to cover the cost.
She said: "I think we need to incentivise people to look at an imaginative and innovative way of trying to provide resources other than through taxpayers. It's an ambitious plan, it's an impressive plan, but it has to be rigorously assessed on the same basis as every other project."
Ms Harney today presented the Rotunda with the country's top healthcare award; the hospital becomes the first in Dublin to be accredited with the quality mark through the Irish Health Services Accreditation Board.
The hospital, founded in 1745, delivers on average 20 babies a day or 7,000 a year and deals with more than 60,000 patients annually.