Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very glad that the Deputy has made this point because some members of the committee, both here and in comments in the media, have suggested as the solution to the problem things that would halt the project. The project is not being halted. We are contractually committed to delivering the project and I am really proud that this hospital will be built. I guarantee that in years to come when children are being treated in this hospital, and in months to come when children are being treated in the Connolly urgent care centre which will open this summer, parents and their children will start to see the benefits of this. That is not trying to take away from the very significant issue with the overrun, and no one is trying to do so, but they cannot constantly conflate the things and try to dismiss all the clinical benefit. If people want to continue to measure the cost of this hospital purely on the basis of beds, it shows a massive ignorance of paediatric healthcare because we try to keep children out of beds. Measurement by square metre is the way to measure this project. Taking the square metre measurement one can see how this project compares favourably with a similar project to be built in London and how the international benchmark shows the benefits of this project. People are thinking up different ways to land headlines around this situation. That is not to take away from the very serious and legitimate questions or matters of transparency and accountability, but nobody in this room will regret the decision to build this project. We would, however, regret pausing a project and delaying it, and depriving another generation of Irish children of world-class paediatric healthcare because, to answer Deputy Durkan's second question, there is no other facility. There are a number of adult hospitals but we do not have a national children's hospital. This is the first time that we will do it.

There are serious questions that others need to ask as to why, during the last economic boom, there was a failure to build this hospital and €40 million of taxpayers' money was squandered on a site for which planning permission was never received.