Mr. David Gunning:

There is a pedestrian footpath. This is access for the emergency services, in and out, and all traffic, in and out.

This is a view of the 12-acre site. One does not get to see a lot on this and I guess the access road is the key point.

I would like to move on to the next slide. This is taken, again, looking in that same direction, but the key point here is we are starting to see a hospital emerging from the building site. To talk about some of the areas here, one will see the area, "Concourse", that is labelled there in the centre of the photograph. That will be, if you like, the main street up through the hospital. One may remember that from previous presentations or models. Again, to emphasise, that street is the length of Grafton Street, as a reference point. Off that street, there is a multi-storey on each side. We see on the left, going from bottom to top, we have the decontamination unit, radiology above that, critical care and then the various therapy rooms along that. On the right, these are the fingers that one will notice if one drives by the South Circular Road. They will be the outpatient departments. Above that, we have cardiology, a surgical ward or other therapies, and the haematology and oncology ward on the top, and others will go on top of that. Down on the bottom left, one will see a plant room is being constructed. That is the location of the former access road, which has now been practically fully excavated. That is a recent milestone that we have passed. That plant room there will provide energy and various other services to the building. Again, to emphasise, we are starting to see a hospital emerge from the building site.

If I could have the next one, please. It is hard to see some of this in red. Again, to show the scale, one will see the workers in the foreground there laying out reinforcing bar, rebar, in advance of a concrete pour. Right above them, one sees B2, which is basement 2, basement 1 above that. There is lower-ground floor, ground floor, levels 1, 2, 3 and 4. Just beside the "L" on level 4, one starts to see some columns emerging that are the start of the supports for levels 5, 6 and 7. An enormous amount of work has been achieved. I will say probably the progress is not as much as we would like but we are making quite considerable progress. That gives the scale from basement 2 all the way up to what has been done.

The next slide shows the view if one drives along South Circular Road. The old entrance is where that traffic warden is on the left-hand side at the break in the timber there. Again, one can see these three different figures that stick out. What one cannot see because of the scaffolding is that we now have facade going up on these particular buildings. Mr. Barry mentioned there is one window in. Now tens of windows have gone in, even in the past week. There is quite a lot of progress. The outpatients are over on this side. Gardens will be on top of this to provide a healing environment for the children and their families. I mentioned previously the haematology and oncology there on the left, as that will go three more storeys on top of those fingers for the wards and other locations.

The next slide gives another view. There is a lot of scaffolding there which is paving the way for facade, insulation, etc., that get affixed to the structure along with the windows. That is the north block, which is probably the slower part of the build but is moving along now at a fair degree of pace.

The next slide shows the view from close to the offices that we occupy in Herberton, beside Fatima Luas stop. The Luas runs along there from left to right and the other side of the fence is our view of the building. To the left of that will be where the helipad is located and in there we see a so-called "linear park", which is a development along the Luas which provides a nice environment there for the local community.

On the next slide, just going into some of the mechanical and electrical detail, a lot of work has been done in this particular area and it is not all just concrete and steel. On the left-hand side, one can see lagged pipes up towards the top with the silver coating on them. Those are all for steam and hot water. On the fire protection in the centre, the red pipes are the already-installed sprinkler system for the areas that have been developed.

A large number of air handling units have been installed in the level two basement, which will provide ventilation and various other services related to air quality in the entire hospital. Basement level one is a car park and is practically complete, only requiring some lining up and finishing. The final slide shows the orientation of the hospital from a height. As one looks through the main street of the hospital, one can see in the distance, if one's eyesight is very good, a couple on the roof of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham. This will all be enclosed eventually. These photographs are two weeks old. We had a presentation from the design team on Tuesday that showed even more progress than we are showing here today. I wanted to share those photographs with the committee to give an indication of the progress made to date.

As I went through the slides, I spoke about insulation. The sustainability of the hospital has been raised in the past. I wish to emphasise that the hospital is being built to the highest standard set out by the Building Research Establishment, BRE. It will reach the "excellent" rating for energy performance and sustainability or the building energy rating, BER, A-3 standard. This means that there will be a 60% to 70% reduction in the energy costs of this hospital in comparison to the existing hospitals being operated by CHI, which is significant.

Mr. Barry mentioned the outpatient and urgent care centre at Connolly Hospital and construction is also ongoing at Tallaght University Hospital. The CHI unit at Connolly is open and is delivering services. Almost 2,000 children have attended urgent care clinics and 1,000 outpatient appointments have taken place since the opening.

The images do not convey the full reality of what is going on and the scale of it. In that context, we would be delighted to host a visit from the committee as a group or as individuals. That invitation stands and we would welcome such a visit.