Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----a budget that he was a party to cutting during his years in office. One could argue, were one to take into account inflation, changes in population and demographic pressures, that in real terms the figure is less than the level of expenditure the Minister inherited. In any event, it still will leave us second from the bottom of the league in European terms in respect of capital investment. Most people would regard this plan as part of the choreography of general elections. Famously, under the previous Government, the former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, flanked by John Gormley of the Green Party, announced a massive spending plan to the tune of €40 billion. Does the Minister remember that? Of course it never happened; it was notional and aspirational, much as is this document. The long and the short of it is that it was not delivered.

Consideration of a document like this is probably more suited to a committee setting where we can examine each proposition step by step. We should avail of the opportunity to do that.

As my time is limited, I want to zero in on one proposition the Minister has made. It is on page 31 under the heading of health care. In it, he sets out a reconfiguration of the investment in maternity services, which is long overdue. He plans to move the Rotunda Hospital out to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown. I would like the Minister to provide the cost-benefit analysis and position papers that informed that particular decision. I wonder if such documentation exists. Anybody who knows this particular hospital, which has been crying out for investment for a long time, would know that its medical referral relationship has always been with the Mater hospital. Those of us who know the area - I suspect the Minister himself also knows it - are aware that there is a site adjacent to the Mater hospital which had been earmarked for the children's hospital. The Minister will remember that and he will also know that considerable amounts of taxpayers' moneys were invested - some may argue wasted - in the preparation of that site.

People who have attended or worked in the Rotunda Hospital cannot understand this decision to move it to Blanchardstown. Why on earth would one do that and disrupt those medical relationships, while leaving that site idle? For the purposes of this specific initiative, I would like to see all of the considerations and analyses, including a cost-benefit analysis, that informed a decision to move this maternity hospital to Blanchardstown, which is the constituency both of the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton.

I have raised that specific issue, but each of the other initiatives contained in the report need to be subjected to that kind of analysis in terms of expenditure, the efficacy of the spend, and the process the Minister went through to produce this document. Surely the politics of a general election do not inform the Minister, and he would not be playing for home advantage as well.

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