Fine Gael TDs will today call on the Government to abandon what they claim is a "flawed policy" of allowing private hospitals to be built alongside public facilities on public land.
The Government's co-location policy involves plans to build eight private hospitals with a view to making 1,000 extra hospital beds available in the public hospitals.
Around 20 per cent of beds in those public hospitals are used by private patients, and Minister for Health Mary Harney says the co-location programme will free them up for public use.
But when the Dáil sits this afternoon, Fine Gael members will table a private members' motion stating that no electoral mandate for the "flawed policy" exists.
The TDs' motion also says that over a million voters in the May general election supported candidates who are opposed to the Government's co-location plan. They also say the former government lost its majority in the House and nine seats.
A group of health campaigners today called for an immediate halt to the co-location programme.
Peadar McMahon, chairman of the Health Services Action Group (HSAG) said smaller public hospitals in Ireland are being downgraded in order to facilitate private companies with a "fraud background" in the United States to turn a profit.
"We have seen compelling evidence that companies who have set up in business in Ireland in recent years, or who have been retained by our Government to provide health services, have reportedly paid huge fraud bills to the Federal Government of the United States," Mr McMahon claimed.
Health analyst Marie O'Connor, author of Emergency: Irish hospitals in chaos, said she had investigated the American health industry and its connection with private for-profit health care in Ireland and was "deeply concerned" by her findings.
The campaigners - including members of the Patients Together lobby group and Galway-based consultant physician Dr John Barton - also claim that "massive fraud settlements" are being made by US healthcare companies operating in Ireland on foot of federal investigations in the United States.