MILLIONAIRE tax exile JP McManus is understood to have offered the government up to 5m to build a new radiotherapy centre for cancer patients in the midwest.

The Department of Health and the Mid-Western Health Board are considering proposals put forward by a consortium in the area, which includes McManus, to finance the building of a radiation oncology unit if the state would fund the on-going revenue costs.

The Department of Health is understood to have as yet made no decision on the proposal as it runs against a development strategy for radiotherapy which was given to cabinet only a fortnight ago.

The cost of developing a new radiotherapy unit close to the regional hospital in Limerick is expected to cost between 30m and 40m.

Sources said that the department was concerned that the cost of providing radiotherapy services in a unit with a small number of linear accelerators (the machines which provide radiation treatment) would be higher than in a larger unit.

As revealed exclusively in The Sunday Tribune over a year ago, the government's review group on radiotherapy has rejected proposals by campaigners in the south-east and mid-west for the government to develop services for cancer patients in these regions. Instead, the report recommends that radiotherapy services in Dublin, Cork and Galway should be enhanced.

In its confidential memo to government on the issue earlier this month, the Department of Health proposed that radiotherapy services should remain at St Luke's Hospital in Dublin. There had been calls for this service to be moved to St James's or St Vincent's hospitals, where other forms of cancer care such as surgery and chemotherapy are provided.

The department proposed that the government establish a new committee to determine where exactly a new radiotherapy service on the northside of Dublin should be based. A previous government expert group which advised the department was split on this issue.