Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will ask Mr. Tierney to come in with some of the detail in a moment. I would like to make two quick points in response to what the Cathaoirleach said. First, for children who are waiting on spinal care, be that outpatient appointments, diagnosis, surgery or aftercare, that care and sorting out what we need to do for those children are not contingent on this hospital opening. We have added significant capacity in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals, with an extra operating theatre, double the MRI capacity, 24 more beds, and many more staff. The Taoiseach and I, the chief executive and others had a very constructive meeting with several of the patient advocacy groups on Monday. We were able to outline to them the reductions through this year and the number of children on the active list. We are pursuing that relentlessly. It is not contingent on this hospital. I just want to make that point.

On the Cathaoirleach's point, if I can back it up further, the last hospital the State built was, I think, Tallaght University Hospital, 20 or 25 years ago. The State has not done this in decades. In fact, it has never done any hospital of this complexity. Not including the children's hospital, we now have five other hospitals that we are committed to building. One has commenced, which is the maternity hospital, and we have four elective hospitals too. A thorough lessons-learned exercise has been done. I ask Mr. Tierney to give some of the top lines on that.