The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said she is calling a meeting this week of Department of Health and HSE officials, to discuss the difficulties in rolling out the Government's national radiotherapy plan.
She said it would be unacceptable if the public system were unable to deliver the services as promised, over the next six years.
At the weekend, RTÉ News revealed details of an unpublished report to the minister, which said the plan was up to three years behind schedule.
The minister said today the Government would have to go elsewhere if the public system is not capable of delivering the radiotherapy plan.
Ireland 'punching below its weight' on funding
The author of a report into cancer research funding across Europe has said Ireland is punching below its weight on funding and is being overtaken by other countries.
Referring to the recent concerns over the quality of care and diagnosis for breast cancer patients, Prof Richard Sullivan said that excellence and leadership in cancer research had a direct impact on the quality of service and health care for cancer sufferers.
The report will be presented to MEPs at the European Parliament in Brussels later this morning.
Cancer kills over 3,000 people in Europe every day.
Today's report by the European Cancer Research Managers forum looks at the extent of research funding across the EU and how it compares with the US.
The US spends €5.2bn on research while Europe spends €1.9bn, but Europe is catching up.
Out of 32 countries, Ireland lies 14th in terms of direct annual funding for cancer research, at just under €16m; the UK on the other hand spends €780m.
Ireland spends €4m per capita on cancer research, while the UK spends €15m and Sweden €7m.
Prof Sullivan said that while Irish funding had focused well on end of life care and palliative medicine, Ireland was still punching below its weight on cancer research.
He said bodies like the Irish clinical oncological research group were still having difficulty in getting funded and too many bright young researchers were going abroad where funding was better.
