A charitable trust will shortly begin building a radiotherapy unit on the campus of Limerick Regional Hospital following the formal handover of a site for the unit to the trust by the Mid Western Health Board on Friday.
The unit, to be financed from the €6 million which has been raised by the Mid West Hospital Development Trust, will have two linear accelerators.
These are the machines which administer radiotherapy.
The development will mean cancer patients in the mid-west will no longer have to travel to Dublin or Cork for treatment. Many have gone without therapy in the past rather than undertake these journeys.
The Mater Private Hospital in Dublin has been given a licence to run the unit.
The trust decided to set up the unit after a Government-approved expert report on radiotherapy services, published late last year, recommended radiotherapy should only be provided in Dublin, Cork and Galway for the foreseeable further.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he wanted "a backbone" service put in place to make up for current deficits before he considered funding "satellite" units.
He has not, however, objected to the Mid Western Health Board handing over land to the Mid West Hospital Development Trust for the development of this unit in Limerick, given that funding for the unit has been raised locally, much of it from a golf classic organised two years ago by the businessman Mr J. P. McManus in which Tiger Woods appeared.
The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Mr Tim O'Malley, has welcomed the development in his native Limerick and attended the formal handover of the site for the unit.
Some cancer specialists who favour large radiotherapy units with multi-disciplinary teams are understood to be unhappy that the Department of Health has not objected to the move, given that it is out of step with what was planned in the Government-backed expert report on the future planning of radiotherapy services.
They believe patients are likely to have better outcomes in larger units with multi-disciplinary teams.
Those behind the Limerick radiotherapy unit say they expect it to be operating within two years.
It will treat both public and private patients.