Mr. Bernard Gloster:

The Secretary General and I went to Galway to meet the project board, which is chaired by the hospital executive. It has subject matter expertise from outside of the hospital, together with the estates function. It is now recruiting and finalising a full-time dedicated project director specifically for the capital plan for the Galway site. I have, as has the Department, made available to the board a resource allocation for it to hire the necessary subject matter expertise it needs to bring forward a plan. It is to be hoped that plan will materialise this summer and that can then go onto the capital priority list for Government and decision making. As the Senator can appreciate, it is a very extensive plan, given the deficits in the infrastructure in Galway which are well known and which I have been on the record as being behind the curve in terms of other hospitals.