Mr. John Pollock:

There are quite a few questions there. I will start with the St. James's campus. There is a big vision for the St. James's campus that people probably do not always fully understand. It has come out of all reports that were written for Government on which the ultimate decision to co-locate was made. Fundamentally, having co-location is the optimal solution. That comes out clearly in all of the reports, whether it is the McKinsey report, the Dolphin report or the Clear and Martin report. Co-location is fundamental. What St. James's has as a campus is specialties and sub-specialties. What does that mean for people who come to the hospital? It means it has radiation treatment services. Obviously, Connolly does not have a radiation treatment service so we would have to duplicate a service like that out in Connolly. St. James's has access to the blood transfusion service. Again, that is obviously a service that paediatrics requires. I will ask my medical colleagues to elaborate on why these specialties are so important.

St. James's has 50 acres of land in the middle of the city centre. It is going to undergo a radical change over the next number of years. I invite the committee to come and visit the site. It is currently made up of many single and two-storey buildings. The development plan now permits the building of six and seven-storey buildings. The children's hospital construction works are now under way. Adults are already there. It has blood transfusion services. On the issue of maternity services and the Coombe, I will ask Dr. Sharon Sheehan to talk about her support for the site from the maternity side of things. The Coombe will be delivered in the next number of years. On this campus, there will be services from cradle to grave: there will be maternity services, children' services and adult services. St. James's recently opened the Mercer's institute for successful ageing, MISA, building for the aged. There are services for maternity, children, adults and the aged. We also have access to radiation oncology services. There are the blood transfusion services. There is research carried out there. There is the institute for molecular medicines and the Wellcome institute. We are going to put the children's research centre right beside that. They will share a mass spectrometer. Buildings will be physically linked and staff will move from building to building. They will share their research. People ask, "Why is research important?". Research is important because it is the future of treatment. The research we do today is the treatment of tomorrow.

There is a big vision piece happening on this campus. Out of that, we will get a campus that will rival anything in Europe. It will be one of the great health care campuses and will compete with any in Europe. What we get from that is the best staff and the best people wanting to work on this campus. People automatically think of Great Ormond Street Hospital and they want to work there. This is what we are creating: a health care campus across cradle to grave that people want to come to and have access to research in. If we get the best people and staff, we get the best treatment for our children. That is the big vision piece that might not always be communicated on our behalf. I will ask Dr. Peter Greally to talk about why St. James's is so suitable from the clinical perspective.