Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The challenge is a very simple one. Notwithstanding all of the good work that is going on in different parts of the health service, which everybody here would acknowledge, the problem is that there appears to be a budgeting system that is subject to regular massive overspends. My understanding is that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is a Department that addresses the issue of overspends. Mr. Watt has mentioned the children's hospital and that we did not need to go back into it in detail but there is talk of further significant overruns being possible. I mentioned to him the three maternity hospitals in Dublin but there are also maternity hospital situations in locations around the country. The Rotunda Hospital was meant to transfer but we are now being told that we will have to, possibly, build a temporary five or six-storey building in Parnell Square and nothing is happening. I want to get an image. These are significant amounts of money. Will moving the Rotunda cost €300 million or €500 million plus the cost of building a new maternity hospital?

In terms of the sister hospital on Holles Street, which is on the southside, we are now told, and have been for a while, that the Vatican must make up its mind as to whether it will have some kind of governance involvement. In the meantime, does one ring somebody and say there is a problem? We have an ambassador to the Vatican and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mr. Watt has said that his Department has oversight. Where is the problem solving, firefighting approach when these are serious issues for the staff, the patients who will use the hospital, the babies who will be born there and the master in terms of safety? The poor master has talked about feeling that there is a level of unsafety for babies. That is a massive thing for the master of any hospital to actually say. It is also really worrying for women and their families who are likely to have babies there, particularly if the baby is likely to need special support.