Criticisms by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, about the value for money given by the Department of Health are "nothing new," the Minister for Health said yesterday.
Playing down reports of a Cabinet clash in the wake of the 2003 estimates, Mr Martin said Mr McCreevy had been critical of the health services for the past five years, and so had other finance ministers before him.
"We happen to be the largest-spending Government Department, so it's natural that the Minister for Finance should take a particular interest," he added.
Mr McCreevy made pointed references to the quality of health spending last week, as he defended a modest increase in the estimate for 2003.
Emphasising the cumulative 147 per cent rise in the health budget during his reign as finance minister, he said: "I don't believe that people are twice as sick as they were in 1997. We can't keep going like this.
"The Minister for Health and his officials are obliged to live within their allocation."
Mr McCreevy also avoided questions on the implications of the estimate for the Government's health strategy, saying Mr Martin would " have to deal with that".
But asked yesterday if there was a rift between him and Mr McCreevy over spending, Mr Martin said: "No, there is not."
There was "complete Cabinet unanimity" about the estimates, he insisted, and the health strategy also continued to have "full Government backing".
Mr Martin was speaking at the opening of a new cancer clinical trials office in St James's Hospital, Dublin.
The €1.7-million development was built with public funds and marks the first occasion in which such funding has been made available for clinical trials in Irish hospitals.
Mr Martin said the programme would provide patients with access to new cancer treatments, which otherwise would be unavailable to them until the products were licensed.
The initiative operates through the Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium, which comprises four Dublin hospitals - St James's, St Luke's, the Coombe, and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children - as well as the Midland Health Board.
Prof John Reynolds of St James's said clinical trials were vital to the improvement of cancer care.
One of the main strengths of the new office would be the ability "to naturally co-ordinate trials of common malignancies that require therapy at separate sites".
Dr John Kennedy, who with Prof Reynolds is a "co-principle investigator" of the consortium, said it was widely recognised that many cancer patients received the best possible care in the context of clinical studies.
He added: "It is our goal to ensure that such studies are available to the greatest possible number of patients in the participant institutions."
