The proposed hospital for the North East was never to be funded through the National Development Plan (NDP), the Irish Minister for Health, Mary Harney, said yesterday.

The current NDP covers projects planned between 2003 and 2007, but the new hospital was envisaged as a much longer-term project.

Last week, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said there was not a "red cent" in the exchequer to pay for the new hospital, which consultants have recommended be built in Navan.

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Ms Harney said that she would not comment on the appropriateness or otherwise of Mr Ahern's remarks, but said that as he was Deputy for Louth "clearly there was disappointment" that Co Meath had been recommended over Co Louth.

She emphasised that although the report compiled by outside consultants tipped Navan as the best location, the HSE nor the Government had not yet endorsed the recommendation.

The North East already has five hospitals - Navan, Cavan, Monaghan, Dundalk and Drogheda, but following an independent review of acute hospital services in the region the HSE decided in June 2006 to build a new hospital. Services will be centralised in Cavan and Drogheda while awaiting the new hospital.

(VB/JM)