The Government has no pre-election plans to sign contracts allowing developers to build private clinics on scarce public land, the Taoiseach told the Dail today.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte claimed that Health Minister Mary Harney had no mandate in the Coalition's Programme for Government to authorise the proposed deals.
Arguing that the State's two-tier health system already treated public patients as second-class citizens, Mr Rabbitte asked Bertie Ahern: "Are you going to sign contracts before the election, or are you not?"
But Mr Ahern replied during Leaders' Questions: "I'm not aware of any contracts. You can put down a parliamentary question to the Minister for Health. I'm aware of no contracts at any stage of negotiation."
Mr Rabbitte said health was a community service, not a commodity, but Mr Ahern claimed the public/private system in the health service offered major benefits to public patients.
"The advantage of the system is that medical consultants can work in both private and public, and it is my absolute conviction that the public patients will gain most out of that.
"A high-powered consultant who can work anywhere in the world, they come back to this country and they operate in our system in both public and private.
"For ward rounds, for surgery, for pathology, for radiology, we get the benefit of top class consultants who can work on both sites. "It means that Joe or Mary Bloggs on welfare or Mr X or Mrs Y who are millionaires or billionaires can be seen by the same consultant. It happens every day in our hospitals."
The Taoiseach responded to the Opposition benches: "When you don't like the argument, you interrupt. You laugh because you are ignorant of how the system works."
Mr Ahern said that there has been co-location at Dublin's Mater Hospital for 140 years. "It works very effectively. I don't see a difficulty in that happening."
"It creates equality for public patients, not inequality." He added: "That is my view as an accountant, as a former hospital administrator, as a Joe Bloggs, as a practising politician and as Taoiseach." It emerged last night that troubled talks on new contracts for hospital consultants could be concluded by the end of March.
The Cabinet heard yesterday that agreement could be reached between the HSE and the medics before the Government's final deadline on March 27th. The Health Minister is determined that the contract talks be concluded before the general election, expected in May.