O’Rourke reluctant over co-location

A GOVERNMENT backbencher has expressed serious reservations about Health Minister Mary Harney’s hospital co-location plan.

Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke told the Dáil yesterday she had been a reluctant convert to the plan and remained “extremely reluctant now”.

Under the plan, sites on a number of public hospital campuses are being leased to developers to build private facilities. Private beds will then be moved out of the public hospitals and into the co-located facilities. In this way, Ms Harney hopes to free up 1,000 beds in the public hospitals.