Hospital inpatient charges are to go from next month.
It means people accessing public care won't be charged - removing the current €80 a day fee.
The change is expected to cost upwards of €30m a year.
Stephen McMahon from the Irish Patients Association says it's important this is new money and doesn't come from existing budgets.
"The cost of this we understand is in the region of €32m a year, and this is why we hope this is going to be new money provided to the health system, and not have to be funded out of existing services.
"That would just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
"We need to be sure that is new money coming into the system, otherwise somebody would lose out of it was coming out of existing budgets."
