Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 September 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Update on Construction of New National Children's Hospital: National Paediatric Hospital Development Board

9:30 am

Mr. Phelim Devine:

We set out very early on in the design to make it as sustainable as possible. The project has been awarded a BREEAM "excellent" rating in design, which is a high accolade for a hospital development. We have also designed to an A3 rating. We did look at a number of sustainability measures early on but it is a hospital, at the end of the day. We looked at using ground water. We also looked at using a district heating system with Diageo but unfortunately, that fell through. That would have been a great thing to achieve. We looked at PV solar panels at one stage but we only have one roof available, which is the roof where we have the helipad so that would not work. However, that does not mean it might now work elsewhere on the site or campus in the future because PV technology has come on hugely since we designed the hospital. We have made it as sustainable as we could. I do not have the figure for the embodied carbon but I can talk to the design team and come back to the committee on that. Our design team is working closely with CHI, which will operate and run the hospital, on estimating the running costs. We fed into that but it would be a matter for CHI. I hope that answers the Senator's question.

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