Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The Tánaiste has a hard neck to lecture this House about decorum in Parliament when he is asked a straight question but cannot answer it and then behaves in the fashion that he has. He has now gone into a sulk.

I would like the Tánaiste to do us the honour of answering a straightforward question. I am referring to an article in The Irish Times where the Tánaiste's single transferable speech features a couple of times a week. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Brian Lenihan, has stated that the proposed site for the new national children's hospital must be reviewed. This apparently arose in response to the report on Crumlin Children's Hospital published in The Irish Times yesterday. Deputy Lenihan has apparently said the Government decision on locating the new national children's hospital must now be reviewed. Does the Tánaiste understand the concerns about this new uncertainty around the future of the national children's hospital?

If he has not had time to study The Irish Times story, I can tell him the report from Crumlin Hospital apparently said it cannot be shoehorned into the Mater Hospital site. It points out that it is one quarter the size of the existing Crumlin site. It says there are serious problems about access, transport and parking. It says that, ideally, the hospital ought to be built on a greenfield site where the three hospitals could be merged and co-located with a maternity hospital.

The National Children's Hospital at Tallaght makes similar arguments that the reinforcement and implementation of the existing decision will lead to a serious downgrading of the tertiary teaching status of the hospital. The former Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Robin Eames, met with the Tánaiste's predecessor and the Taoiseach and raised his concerns about the downgrading of Tallaght. He advocated a solution that seems to have merit to many people. He said there ought to be a new national children's hospital under single governance with a campus on both the north side and south side of Dublin. He makes this argument based on the circumstances that force parents with sick children to traverse this city through heavy traffic congestion. A national children's hospital should, by definition, serve the nation, and children coming from the south or west ought not to be asked to spend the additional time travelling from Newlands Cross to the Mater Hospital where there is no parking and no adequate space. It is the belief of these experts and the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, that the decision made by Government must be reviewed. Is the Government reviewing the decision? Or does the decision to site the new hospital at the Mater Hospital stand?

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