Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to note that consultants and clinicians will not necessarily have dedicated office space in every scenario. It should probably not be considered hot desking but they will be moving around the hospital. We are not building a hospital with copious amounts of office space and numerous meeting rooms. On the contrary, we are ensuring that our children have modern, fit-for-purpose facilities which they do not have today, as Deputy Durkan is aware. Rather than children spending months in Florence Nightingale-type wards with parents sleeping on the floor, we will have single rooms for infection control, en suites, proper research facilities, a school, proper recreational space for children who may not be able to get outdoors, more theatre space and MRI scanners. A full breakdown of room usage is available and can be made available to the Deputy.

The hospital will revolutionise paediatric healthcare. We would all greatly prefer for the total cost to be €983 million rather than €450 million more than that. However, it will revolutionise children’s healthcare. When it opens, we will wonder why we have never before had such a hospital. I am regularly and rightly asked about lengthy children's waiting lists by committee members. The hospital will offer an opportunity to significantly impact on those lists through offering far more theatre space and many more outpatient clinics.

Everyone is talking about the project as though we must wait for the shiny new buildings to open. That misses the point. Children’s Health Ireland exists and our three standalone children’s hospitals have become one entity. A centralised referral system will be put into operation this year. Previously, a child waiting for an outpatient appointment in Crumlin hospital would have to wait until an appointment became available there. Under the new system, if an earlier appointment is available in Temple Street Hospital, the child will also be offered that appointment. This year, we will begin to see the benefits of the hospitals working together as one entity in terms of more outpatient appointments being offered.