Dr. Róisín Healy:

I have been an emergency medicine consultant in Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin for 20 years. I was a sole practitioner, permanent, in the department for 14 years before I received any help. This is my first time in a committee room. I read up on the function of Oireachtas committees on the Oireachtas website. The function of the committee is to monitor the Department of Health and it was for this reason and on the basis of the absence of any other forum or means to make our concerns known to members of the public and to make the public's concerns known to the Government that we are here today. I thank members for inviting us.

As Senator Rónán Mullen noted, there is a disconnect here. The first issue is whether the new children's hospital building will fit in its environment. That matter is the function of An Bord Pleanála. No committee can address what we refer to as the service function or model of care. Perhaps the Committee on the Future of Healthcare chaired by Deputy Róisín Shortall could be a forum for debating this issue but until now there has been no place to discuss the issue.

Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin stayed out of the development board for two and a half years because it objected when the Mater Hospital site was chosen. The archbishop chairman of the board stated the core value of Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin was a co-located, co-built hospital with a short corridor between the maternity hospital and children's hospital. After some years, everybody was exhausted and decided to concentrate on his or her work. More than 60 eminent doctors, including the 15 top ICU specialists, have said this is a red line they will not cross. The Government has ignored any question that has been asked about this matter. I do not believe it has any intention of locating a maternity hospital on the Crumlin hospital site. If it had, why has it not done anything for the past ten years? This is a serious concern and the delay speaks for itself.

We would like the Government to change the decision. The Dolphin report was published at the beginning of June 2012 and the decision was made on 2 November 2012. The then Minister for Health and Children and Deputy, Senator James Reilly, did not explain the clinical considerations we were told about, nor did we ever find out who advised him. We know, however, that there was a major row in the Cabinet on the day the decision was made. The then Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, and the current Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, stated the hospital should be located in Blanchardstown. If we were discussing demographics, we could argue the toss on that issue. We want the Government to change the decision and we want the joint committee to recommend that it does so.

We have been told by senior politicians that the only people who have power in this dysfunctional Government are the Taoiseach and his Ministers. Given the new politics, will the joint committee please contact the Taoiseach and Minister for Health on this issue? The Minister has not done us the simple courtesy of acknowledging receipt of or responding to the 60,000 signatures which were sent to him from the Department of the Taoiseach. For the sake of the children of Ireland whom we are meant to look after, let us change this decision before it is too late.