The government's national plan for the development of radiotherapy treatment for cancer is up to three years behind schedule, according to an unpublished expert group report for the Health Minister, obtained by RTÉ News.
The report of the National Radiation Oncology Group says that while interim radiotherapy facilities should be in place in Dublin by early 2009 at St James's and Beaumont hospitals, full treatment capacity is unlikely to be delivered until Autumn 2013 or the end of 2014.
It also says services for Cork, Galway and Waterford will be delivered at the earliest by the end of 2012.
Interim facilities at St Luke's in Dublin are due to be delivered by the end of this year.
The €400 million plan was approved by the government in July 2005 and promised 23 extra linear accelerators for radiation oncology at several acute hospitals in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick.
The original timescale for the full roll out of the project was 2011.
The expert group, which is chaired by Padraic White, chairman of St Luke's Hospital, says the planned used of public private partnerships in the health sector to deliver the project is a factor in the timescale slippage and it believes there are ways to shorten the current timescale.
The Irish Cancer Society says intolerable delays of up to 20 weeks already exist for radiotherapy treatment here and it is very disappointed at the slippage in the delivery timelines for the national radiation oncology plan.
The Health Minister, Mary Harney wrote to the HSE last month to say that the plan should be delivered through public private partnerships.
