The Green Party will this week support the Government's plans to encourage developers to build private hospitals on public hospital grounds in the face of a Fine Gael-led attempt to force the Government to drop the plans, write Martin Wall& Mark Hennessy.
Meanwhile, contracts for the development of the first six co-located private hospitals to be constructed on public hospital land will be awarded by July 5th, senior figures with knowledge of the plans have disclosed.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said yesterday that the evaluation of the tenders for the first six sites is nearly complete and should be ready in time for a full meeting of the HSE board in early July, or perhaps earlier, to decide on who should get the contracts.
Fine Gael is to introduce a private members' motion in the Dáil on Tuesday calling for the co-location hospital plan to be scrapped, in a move aimed in part at seeking to embarrass the Green Party.
The Greens had strongly opposed the co-location initiative before entering Government.
Calling for "the flawed policy" to be abandoned immediately, the Fine Gael motion argues that more than one million voters supported parties opposing the plan, and that the last Fianna Fáil/ Progressive Democrats coalition had "lost its majority in the House and a total of nine seats".
Defending the Greens' new stand, former Cork South Central TD Dan Boyle said the party had won a commitment from Fianna Fáil to have the whole plan reviewed in 2011, and blocked then unless it could be conclusively shown that the new beds had proven to be value-for-money.
"Given that Fine Gael had indicated to the Progressive Democrats [ in the weeks before the new Government was formed] that they had no problems with co-locations it would be more in Fine Gael's line to consider its own attitudes on this one," he told The Irish Times.
The Greens and the Progressive Democrats disagree on how many private hospitals can be built before a review begins, with the Greens saying seven, and the Progressive Democrats insisting that 11 can go ahead if backers can be found.
Expressing some surprise that the board of Tallaght hospital had decided to host one of the hospitals, Mr Boyle said enough developers had not come forward to fill the number envisaged by the Progressive Democrats: "Where nine and 10 are going to come from, nobody knows," he said.
Tenders for a site at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, Dublin are expected to be received early next month, while tenders will be sought shortly for Tallaght hospital.
About 1,000 beds in public hospitals which are currently designated for fee-paying patients will be transferred to the new co-located facilities. The Government argues that this is the fastest way of generating additional beds for public patients.
Among the consortia seeking to develop co-located facilities are the Mount Carmel Group, the Beacon Medical Group , the Bon Secours Group and the Mater Private.