Professor Chris Fitzpatrick:

I am not certain about where at the St. James's Hospital site the cancer hospital is going. I would not wish to second guess or somehow inhibit the development of cancer services in St. James's Hospital. I am a patient in St. James's Hospital as well, where I am very well looked after. I believe it is possible to do all these things. St. James's Hospital has a can do attitude. It does things and is a very ambitious hospital. I am saying that in that ambition we must make certain that there is a protected space, and the way to protect the space is to start doing something about it now and not to wait. Basically, it would be a travesty of everything that has happened in this regard to find out a couple of years hence that we could not get planning for a hospital that should have been built at the start. The flawed decision was not to put in a dual application at the start and have a co-build. I believe we should examine how the fastest build can be achieved, what the site is, what the specification is and issues regarding access, but this work should start now. The work must be funded because obviously we require experts to help us with it. That process can start.

In terms of neonatal transport, we have a wonderful neonatal transport service. However, it is recognised that babies decompensate during transport. Certainly, the model of care that is recommended by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board is that babies who have critical illnesses and pre-identified problems and who need to be transferred to a paediatric hospital ideally should go across a corridor rather than in an ambulance. The term "world class" has often been bandied about in regard to this hospital, as well as its expense. It behoves us to do it right and not find ourselves short changed. Much of the criticism regarding this site relates to the absence of maternity co-location and a disbelief and lack of trust that it might happen. I was speaking about this in 2006, 2012 and subsequently, but nothing has happened. It is time to act.

I do not know if the Committee of Public Accounts can recommend or what authority it has in this regard. I appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health previously and I should have walked out asking for something. I am asking for the strongest recommendation that the Committee of Public Accounts can give to accelerate the co-location of a maternity hospital on the St. James's Hospital site. That would mean it would have been worthwhile for me to have appeared before the committee in that regard. I do not know whether that is possible. I like the consensus politics we have here at present when one considers what is happening abroad, and I believe there is a consensus on the fact that there is a need for a maternity hospital there.

On the issue of the site, if we were to do it all again we might do it differently, but we are where we are on this. I believe people want to work together and that they will contribute. I will contribute whatever I can to it. I have been critical of this for a long period of time. Medicine is like politics in that one gets things done through compromise. We must compromise on this and consider what the important thing is, which is a maternity hospital on that site. If the committee can do anything to get it there quickly, I would be very grateful.