Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming here this morning. I commend their dedication to this project. I am coming at this issue from a political viewpoint but I also had the misfortune of my first child - I had all my children in the Coombe hospital - having to be transferred to Crumlin hospital for immediate treatment after birth. The issue involved here highlights the challenge one has to deal with when faced with the scenario where after giving birth one's child has to be taken by ambulance straightaway to another hospital. I believe one of the witnesses' offspring treated one of my children at one stage. In terms of the colocation of the maternity and paediatric services, I was struck at that time in the hospital by the challenge facing people who came from outside Dublin and I come from outside Dublin originally. It was fine for me to go home at night and get clothes washed or whatever. I remember there was a lady from Killarney in the hospital. There are the difficulties faced by families, the health outcomes for the children, bonding and so on. In their personal opinions do the witnesses realistically think that maternity services at the Coombe hospital will be moved to the St. James's Hospital site? Do they think there is any possibility that it will not be a high risk maternity centre that is placed there?

Dr. Breathnach mentioned he worked in Great Ormonde Street Hospital. Hospital access is one of my primary concerns about the St. James's Hospital site. It will have emergency patients, children as well as adults together with people attending for outpatient appointments. Somebody told me this would involve an additional 10,000 patients but that figure might be wrong. How will the infrastructure cope with that? How does Great Ormonde Street deal with that? Guy's Hospital, St. Thomas's Hospital and London Bridge Hospital in London, in all of which I have worked, all seem to function fine in that city. Are we just not able to cope with the infrastructure? Have the witnesses any solutions to offer to the difficulty in terms of our infrastructure? Dr. Valerin O'Shea or Dr. Róisín Healy mentioned there was no weakness in the Connolly Hospital site. Does that refer to only planning issues or is there anything they could objectively say is bad about the Connolly Hospital site?

In his professional view does Dr. Breathnach believe that moving maternity services from the Coombe hospital to a restricted site at St. James's Hospital goes against the national maternity strategy? To follow up on Deputy Kelleher's question about medical politics, do the witnesses have any views on that and the role that has played in this?