Susie Long -who died from cancer last Friday - should have been treated more urgently by the health service, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern admitted in the Dáil today.
He said that Minister for Health, Mary Harney had been given assurances that patients needing urgent treatment would be given urgent treatment regardless of whether they were public or private patients.
"The Minister [Mary Harney] has been assured by the Health Service Executive (HSE) that any patient referred to St Luke's for a colonoscopy and considered urgent by a doctor would be given an urgent appointment to be seen within a week or two...That is the policy of the organisation [HSE]," Mr Ahern told the Dáil.
Mr Ahern added: "That should have been the way for Susie Long's diagnosis and that should have been the way it was handled, but it wasn't. And that should have been the way whether she was public or private, and, regrettably, very regrettably, it was not."
Ms Long, who died aged 41 on Friday after a battle against bowel cancer, had waited seven months for a colonoscopy.
She first highlighted her plight under the pseudonym "Rosie" on RTÉ radio last January, appearing in the media on several subsequent occasions under her real name.
In an e-mail to Livelinehost Joe Duffy, she outlined how she had spent seven months waiting for her cancer to be diagnosed, because she was a public patient.
By contrast, she said, a private patient had been treated within three days, although she expressed relief that he had received the treatment he required.
Ms Long is survived by her husband, Conor MacLiam, and two children Áine and Fergus. Her funeral service was held yesterday at Mount Jerome Crematorium, Harold's Cross, Dublin.
Mr Ahern today also offered his sympathies to the Long family.