Dr. Róisín Healy:

The disconnect is the problem. The location was picked before the model of care to be used. The document which everyone saw in the Dáil last week states the model of care was chosen in July 2016. It refers to the function of or services to be provided by the hospital. It was putting a square peg into a round hole and it was never going to fit. It has involved compromise all the way. The clinical directors group, a new creation of the HSE, has only recently been set up. All of the people involved, including those on the hospital development board and the children's hospital group board, would not be if they were not pro-St. James's Hospital. As it occurred a year after the St. James's Hospital site was chosen, there will not be "No" people on the boards. Therefore, the committee should not believe anything they state. They are all pro-St. James's Hospital because they have to be or else they would not be in their jobs. There was probably only one application received for each position. At this committee former Senator John Crown complimented St. James's Hospital on its aggressive campaigning to be chosen as the site of the children's hospital.