Sinn Féin today called on Green Party members meeting in Dublin this evening to reject a programme for government with Fianna Fáil if it does not scrap co-location.
The call comes after Prof Brendan Drumm of the Health Service Executive's (HSE) said in The Irish Timestoday that he is happy for the private sector to do what it wants on public hospital sites once it pays the HSE the full market value.
Prof Brendan Drumm said: "I see co-location as being a competitor for the HSE. I think we should be glad of competition, and we'll stand up and we'll actually be counted in terms of saying we can provide a service every bit as good as what can be provided on a co-located site."
However, Sinn Féin's Health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that in calling co-location competition for the HSE, Prof Drumm is contradicting both the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Health Mary Harney who said it would complement the current system.
He said: "The concept of competition in hospital services is an obscenity.
"Co-location sees the government using public money and public land to subsidise the private for-profit healthcare industry, reinforcing the two-tier system" he said.
"I would urge delegates to the Green Party conference to reject the proposed Programme for Government if it does not totally dispense with the co-location plan" Deputy Ó Caoláin added.
