Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will move on to ask questions of Ms Hardiman. I will follow on from what some other committee members have asked. Our guests can tell by the questions they have asked that those committee member are not based in Dublin. Taxpayers around the country will read about this meeting in the newspapers tomorrow or hear about it on the radio. There are mixed feelings about the project. It is seen as essential but the cost involved has been extortionate. When this hospital has been delivered and built, taxpayers will want to know that it is a national hospital and not a Dublin hospital because that is what the taxpayers are funding. I will bundle together a few questions relating to that issue which Ms Hardiman might be able to answer. Has the surge in terms of delivering this project had any knock-backs for the likes of the Children's Ark ward at University Hospital Limerick, or similar children's wards elsewhere? Is funding being taken from those wards and channelled towards the NCH project? Will the national children's hospital be completed at the expense of wards in Crumlin, the Ark ward, etc.?

Will there be an enhanced ambulance service to give connectivity to the new hospital? There is, of course, a public National Ambulance Service but it seems to me that many of the transfers of children to the current children's hospital in Crumlin from other parts of the country occur through voluntary service, such as BUMBLEance. Please God children from the west and south of Ireland will not need to go the new NCH but, if they do, taxpayers want to know that the hospital is for them, the children concerned will be able to get there easily, there will be a bed for them and they will be well looked after. Perhaps Ms Hardiman could offer some clarity in that regard.