Dr. Jimmy Sheehan:

The issue of the delay that might occur if the decision was made to locate the new hospital at the Connolly hospital site rather than the St. James's campus, is one of concern for everybody. The enabling works at the St. James's site started in August. The timeframe for completion of those works is 12 months. This means that the main contract will not be signed until some time next year. The enabling works involves clearance of the site to bring it up to a greenfield site standard. In regard to moving the project to the Connolly hospital site, almost all of the architectural work has been done twice already in respect of the Mater hospital site and the St. James's site and has been paid for twice by the taxpayer, such that there would be little further architectural work required. While there would be some architectural work required, most of the detail in terms of proximity of departments, interaction between departments and so on has been worked out twice. It would be easy to transpose that into a final plan for the Connolly hospital site.

Three years ago I took the trouble to have tentative plans drawn up for the Connolly site to see how a hospital would sit there. I reckon that within a six-month timeframe the remainder of the planning could be undertaken. The construction programme and commissioning could be undertaken safely in a two-year period. I say that because it took ten months to complete Blackrock Hospital. Construction of Galway hospital, which was much more extensive, took 13 months to complete. The commissioning period was two weeks. The construction timeframe for The Hermitage was 15 months. The timeframe around construction and commissioning is entirely dependent on organisation. I am sure everybody here is familiar with the Empire State building. It was designed and built in 20 months. The timeframe from the laying of the first foundation to the capping off of the 86th floor was six months. That building was built at the rate of one floor per day. This was due to organisation and pre-planning. My interest in hospital construction is around pre-planning and doing things in a rapid way. There is huge advantage, if the intention is to do things within a 12-month timeframe, in specifying all of the equipment before any ground is broken so that everything is purpose-built for what is being put into it. Unfortunately what we do in this country is build the hospital and then look at equipping it, which results in much of what has been done being torn down and a further two or three years lost on commissioning. That is not the way I have operated. It would give me extraordinary pleasure to make some contribution towards the construction of the new hospital in a rapid manner at the Connolly site on a purely benevolent basis. I am prepared to give my services to the State for as long as is required and to have the hospital up and running within a three-year timeframe from the date the go-ahead is given.