The Chief Executive of the Health Service Executive has confirmed that the HSE has received a consultants' report on the location of a new regional hospital for the northeast, and that the report makes a recommendation in relation to the location of that hospital.
RTÉ News understands that Navan in Co Meath is the preferred location.
Professor Brendan Drumm would not confirm that the consultants had recommend Navan, saying he first wanted to bring the report before his own board, which is due to meet in Galway next week.
However, he said the northeast had been bedevilled by poorer levels of health service delivery because services there were being supplied from five different centres. He said the HSE had to provide the people of the northeast with a much better and more comprehensive service than the service being provided currently.
Earlier, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Louth TD Dermot Ahern said there was no money to build the hospital.
It is two years since it was first recommended to the HSE that a new regional hospital should be built.
Management consultants were appointed to recommend the location, with population trends and access as key factors behind the decision.
The new 750-bed hospital would effectively replace the five existing hospitals in Drogheda, Dundalk, Navan, Cavan and Monaghan.
Instead they would become day hospitals for minor operations.
The recommendation of Navan is a surprise, particularly for those in Louth who had hoped it would be located near Drogheda.
But the fight for the location of the new hospital is not over yet.
Speaking on local radio, Dermot Ahern said it was unlikely the hospital would ever go ahead.
He said it was likely the consultants' report on the issue 'would sit on a shelf'.
Mr Ahern said that there was 'not a red cent in the Government coffers to fund the hospital.'
Fergus O'Dowd, Fine Gael TD for Louth, has criticised the proposal, saying Drogheda was the ideal location. Local people in Monaghan have also expressed concern.
The board of the HSE will have to consider the report next week.
It is likely it will also be sent to the Department of Health and will go before the Cabinet.
