Harney has announced that the government is to create 1,000 extra hospital beds by allowing private hospitals to be built on the sites of public hospitals. This is a major step towards the privatisation of our health service.

Changes made by Charlie McCreevy in the 2002 budget allow investors to write off nearly the entire cost of construction or refurbishment of private hospitals over a seven-year period.

Private developers, through these tax reliefs will be able to claim €62,760 for every €75,000 they invest in these facilities, as well as making huge profits from selling services to the adjoining public hospitals. So Mary Harney proclaims this idea as an opportunity to get private beds out of public hospitals - thus freeing up a thousand beds for public patients - but the taxpayers are still going to have to foot the bill!

The 2001 national health strategy promised 3,000 extra beds by 2011. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) claims that 15,000 beds are needed. The Department of Health claims that 780 new beds have been created yet the Irish Hospital Consultants Association says it is only 419. And Harney's answer to the beds crisis, the overflowing A&E departments, and patients on trolleys is to hand the private sector a golden opportunity to make a fortune from healthcare.

The president of the IMO, Dr Asam Ishtiaq, said, "Our concerns are that the development of for-profit private medicine in Ireland may not be in the best interests of the long-term future of the health service." Incredibly the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has welcomed Mary Harney's proposal. The Socialist Party would go further than Dr Ishtiaq - Harney's plans will be a disaster for our public health service. This is the beginning of a process that will result in a qualitative shift away from public healthcare to private healthcare resulting in an American style system whereby healthcare ceases to be a right, and instead is only fully available to those who can afford to pay.

Recent revelations in relation to private sector involvement in the building of our infrastructure exposed that roads and bridges built by the private sector have cost us up to four times more than if they had been built by the state. The public private partnership deal to build and run the Beaumont hospital car park cost the taxpayer €13 million more than if the government had built it!

Kevin Kelly, acting chief executive of the Health Service Executive has said that there is a €200 million shortfall in government funding for the health service. It is also estimated that the 1,000 public beds currently used by the private sector earns the health service €220 million a year. Yet Harney hasn't mentioned if this income will be replaced by increased funding from the state.

Harney's strategy is to clearly create the circumstances where state funding for health can be dramatically cut at a time when it needs to be increased.

The government's moves towards privatising our health service must be resisted. It is extremely short sighted of the INO not to see the potential danger in Harney's proposal not only for patients' quality of service, but also for the wages and working conditions of all health service workers.

The Socialist Party is opposed to private healthcare. Instead we support the creation of a comprehensive publicly owned healthcare system to provide the sick and infirmed with the highest possible standards of care. The government's privatisation proposals must be resisted by the unions, which have the power to stop the government in its tracks if they organised a co-ordinated campaign by health workers and local communities in an offensive to force the government to invest in public health.