The Government will be told the health budget needs to be at least quadrupled and extra billions spent if the crisis in the State's health service is to be tackled.
At a special Cabinet meeting in Co Louth today the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is expected to tell his Cabinet colleagues that the doubling of the health budget to £5 billion annually has not been nearly enough. At least another 4,000 hospital beds will be needed over the next decade.
Last year an extra £1 billion was spent on health and the same amount, as a minimum, will be needed again this year.
The special Cabinet meeting in Ballymascanlon was called by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, who is concerned about health becoming one of the main issues in the next general election.
Mr Martin told The Irish Times yesterday that while the Cabinet had to make decisions on what to do to resolve the problems in the health services, Irish people also had choices to make.
"We are going to have to agree on a figure to be spent over the next 10 years and where the extra beds will go. But how much is Irish society willing to spend?" asked the Minister.
However, the Fine Gael health spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the meeting was yet another analysis of the health services. "For a Government in its fifth year in office, presiding over a health system gripped by paralysis of analysis, this PR stunt in Ballymascanlon is nothing short of a cynical and panicked response as the general election draws nearer."
Mr Mitchell said he had just discovered, through asking a parliamentary question, that the Minister for Health was currently presiding over 50 different review groups in the health service.
"It would be harder to find a starker contrast for the lethargy with which this Government has presided over the decline in the health services to almost third-world levels than the swift and energetic manner in which it has promoted the so-called Bertie Bowl £1 billion project," he said.
Ministers will also be told today what has been happening in hospitals over the past three years since the health budget was doubled and how much value for money is being achieved.
There has been concern, particularly in the Department of Finance, that there is little tangible return being seen for the huge investment.
Mr Martin will give details of a value-for-money audit which has been carried out. There has also been a recommendation for "very significant capital investment", far more than is being currently allocated towards hospitals and equipment.
However, the figure for the number of beds needed could be scaled back from almost 4,000, if more community-based care facilities are developed.
Negotiations are due to begin on the Medical Manpower Forum over the next few weeks which could see the appointment of hundreds more hospital consultants, with outpatient clinics operating from early morning to late evening.
Meanwhile, three groups are expected to protest as the Cabinet arrives at the Ballymascanlon Hotel. The groups are the No Incineration Alliance, farmers from Cooley angry at the compensation being paid by the Department of Agriculture, and supporters of the campaign to retain a maternity unit at Louth County Hospital.