Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The increased investment from the private sector is part of the Tánaiste's plan to redesignate private beds in public hospitals to public beds in due course, thus increasing the bed capacity for public patients in public hospitals.

The initiative introduced by the former Minister, Mr. McCreevy, in one of his earlier budgets, allowed for 8,000 beds to be made available through the private nursing homes sector through the use of tax relief schemes——

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