The first privately-funded hospital to provide emergency care will open in the State in 2006.
Up to now only public hospitals have provided accident and emergency care but the 180-bed Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Dublin, which is now under construction, also plans to treat emergencies.
It will treat minor emergencies only, however, and will not be "on call" for major trauma.
However, given that up to 85 per cent of patients currently attending A&E units do not have serious medical or surgical conditions requiring admission, the new venture should go some way to relieving pressure on A&E units in the main Dublin hospitals.
Both public and private patients, adults and children, will be able to attend the hospital's minor emergency centre and they will have to pay a fee similar to current A&E charges in public hospitals.
It is not yet clear if the minor emergency centre will be open for 24 hours but it will be open "long hours" and will be run by A&E consultants, according to the medical director of the Beacon Medical Group, Prof Mark Redmond.
It expects half of the 17,000 patients it will treat annually to be public patients and is currently in negotiation with private health insurers about covering the cost of treating private patients at the hospital.
The hospital will have a full range of specialities including cardiology, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery and cancer surgery and will also provide radiotherapy.
In addition it will have PET scanning facilities. And in an attempt to make the most efficient use of beds, patients fit for discharge but unable to travel home immediately will be accommodated in a hotel on the campus and will be visited there by nurses and doctors if necessary.
Otherwise the hotel, which is due to open in January, will operate like any other.
The hospital, being built at a cost of €175 million, will be operated by a company called Triad Hospitals Inc. which owns or operates over 250 hospitals in the US and has a turnover in excess of €4.2 billion.
This is the company's first venture outside the US. When fully operational the hospital will have 550 staff. The project was officially launched yesterday by the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney.