Professor Chris Fitzpatrick:

There are advantages to that, yes. However, I am also considering the site. Sometimes there is a compromise. Parking, access and traffic in the area are all considerations. We would have to consider how that would work. Our proposal for the national children's hospital was a two-site single campus solution, with the children's hospital to be developed in a site beside St. James's Hospital. The vision was that the whole campus would work as a single campus. I am concerned with what works. The really important thing is to start to make it happen. These are the questions we need to ask. We need support from HSE estates and we need a design team. We need to start planning this hospital now. I have asked whether work could be done in advance, simultaneously to what is happening in the national children's hospital or back-to-back, but this needs to happen. There must be a very strong message from the Government saying that the money will be found. The problem with the overspend is that it will hit lots of things that are on the list to be done. It could affect the co-location of the Coombe and St. James's Hospital. Things are going to be cut because of the money lost in the national children's hospital project, and that is one of them. That would be regrettable. It would fulfil Deputy O'Connell's worst fears in that this would not end up being the hospital we planned. It would be a very bad legacy for politics and for medicine.