The Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, has been accused by Fine Gael of "playing politics" following her expression of support for a neurosurgical unit in Galway.
Dr Liam Twomey, Fine Gael's health spokesman, made the accusation yesterday after claiming that such a highly specialised service should not be provided in each region.
He said while he supported keeping services such as radiotherapy as close as possible to patients' front doors, neurosurgery should only be provided at specialist centres. "In the case of neurosurgery we must remember that we are talking about a service that is not comparable to primary care or to 90 per cent of the work done in our acute hospitals.
We are talking about sophisticated, specialised health services. We could look at having neurosurgery services in Limerick, Wexford or Galway but I feel that the best proposal would be a tertiary hospital in Dublin," he said.
The national neurosurgery unit is at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital and a neurosurgery service is also provided in Cork.
Neurosurgeons at Beaumont have said a State-run emergency air ambulance service would be preferable to establishing a unit ithe west. They acknowledged there could be an argument, however, for a unit for emergencies and spinal injuries in Galway.
Dr Twomey said he agreed with this but felt the national unit should be located at a special tertiary hospital on the outskirts of Dublin, to which all regions would have round-the-clock air ambulance connections.