The Government has been accused of wanting to privatise the health service into an Irish Water-style semi-State that would be managed by an accountancy firm.

Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fáil health spokesman, claimed that Minister for Health Leo Varadkar favoured "Thatcherite" policies to privatise "large tracts" of the health service.

He was referring to a recent address by the Minister to Chartered Accountants Ireland, in which he said hospital groups or trusts should have the authority to make collective agreements as well as manage their own assets and payroll.

Mr Varadkar said they should be able to negotiate independent contracts to recruit managers and specialists in the way semi-State bodies now do.

During Dáil leaders’ questions, Mr Kelleher asked Tánaiste Joan Burton if she agreed with the “Thatcherite policies of Mr Varadkar”.

Accountancy firm

“Are you in agreement with the concept of farming out our health services to private management companies, establishing something like an Irish Water that’s to be managed by an accountancy firm that will not take into account the social needs and the social aspects of our public health service?” he asked.

Ms Burton insisted that Mr Varadkar was “very clearly” giving a personal view.

“The Labour Party’s vision of the health service is a publicly funded, well-run health service,” she said, “bearing in mind as well the long not- for-profit voluntary health tradition and service tradition that also exists in this country.”

Mr Kelleher said there was a “strong attachment to the public health service in this country, although it is under-resourced, underfunded and facing major challenges in trying to provide basic levels of service”.

He said it was important that the Tánaiste say if Labour was “in cahoots” with Mr Varadkar’s Thatcherite policies.

Ms Burton said the Minister had indicated that “these were his wide-ranging thoughts on how the health services might develop as he saw it”.

But “it does not mean anybody has to particularly agree with any or all of his views. It is a free country with free speech.”