Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

Does the Minister for Health and Children accept that the goodwill present at the start of the process has evaporated and that the Government decision to locate the paediatric hospital on the Mater site has now effectively been rubbished by Crumlin Hospital's report, which clearly states that it is too small? Perhaps the Minister might deal with those issues, both of which featured in my question. If Crumlin Hospital says that the site is too small for four hospitals to relocate there, how does the Minister address that? Her Minister of State has said that those issues will be addressed. How will she deal with the site that is too small? How will she answer the criticism that access is too difficult? What is her answer to the claim that there are too few beds, with 100 fewer than at present?

Those specific and very serious charges have been levelled regarding a Government decision about which doubts have been raised. However, she can deal with that political charge only if she can justify it and reply to the questions raised by Crumlin Hospital. Its chairman pointed out in an article in The Irish Times today that there is now real fear that care will be compromised and fragmented. Does the Minister accept that it is a very serious charge?

She seems now to have jettisoned a recommendation in the McKinsey report on urgent care units. The recommendation was that they simply be short-term facilities providing urgent care and that no child should be there for longer than 24 hours. The intention would be to stabilise the child and direct it to the tertiary hospital. Is the Minister not clearly stating that the part of the McKinsey report in question has been jettisoned? Is that also for the sake of political expediency?

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