The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has promised that consideration would be given by his department to a plan put forward by the Progressive Democrats to reduce hospital waiting lists.
Under the PD plan, every public patient would be guaranteed private care in Irish hospitals or abroad, if they were on a waiting list for more than three months.
Mr Martin said he welcomed all ideas and contributions to the debate on healthcare and the PDs were "perfectly entitled" to put forward their views.
"We will have to give careful consideration to their plan and we are doing that now. We will be looking at it in the context of the new national health strategy," he said. The strategy will be brought to Cabinet within weeks.
Some suggestions put forward by the PDs were already being acted on, for example, over the past few years children on waiting lists for heart surgery have been sent abroad for their operations, he said. This had a significant impact on waiting lists.
Mr Martin said some health boards had also been given permission to contract beds from the private sector. "The area of private sector capacity is one that we have already explored and it's one that we are open to even expanding if it's possible," he said.
As to whether the PDs plans would be taken on board, Mr Martin said he was not in a position to say at this stage.
Meanwhile Dr James O'Reilly, chairman of the GP Committee of the Irish Medical Organisation, said anything which improved patient access to service had to be welcomed. However, if people were waiting a long time for treatment, bed-capacity here should be used before consideration was given to transporting people abroad.
The issue of aftercare for patients treated abroad was something which concerned his members, he added.
