Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Lawless for his question on this very important project and I accept the legitimate and strong feelings a number of people, including parents, have expressed about it.

The project to develop the new children’s hospital is an extraordinary opportunity to enhance paediatric services for children. The granting of planning permission in April 2016 for the hospital, satellite centres and related buildings was a significant and very welcome milestone for the project. Independent reviews since 2006 have reaffirmed the importance of co-location of the paediatric hospital with a major adult academic teaching hospital. The Government decision in 2012 to locate the hospital on the St. James’s Hospital campus was made in the best interests of children from a clinical perspective. St. James's Hospital has the broadest range of national specialties of all our acute hospitals and it is appropriate that the new paediatric hospital will be co-located on this site. In addition, the hospital has a strong and well-established research and education infrastructure, which makes it the hospital that best meets the criteria to enable the children’s hospital to achieve our vision of excellence in modern paediatric practice.

Objectors to the location raise concerns primarily about access to the site. I reassure parents that the plans and design for the hospital recognise the need of most families to access the hospital by car, while noting that the campus is better served by public transport than any other hospital in the country.

While I am aware that not everyone agrees with the decision on the location of the hospital, further debate will not create consensus. My priority, as I have stated previously, is to make progress on the new hospital as soon as possible in order that we can ensure children, young people and their families have the facilities they need and deserve. An entire generation of children who were expected to benefit from a brand new national children's hospital have grown up without doing so.

Two paediatric outpatient and urgent care satellite centres will be provided at Tallaght and Connolly hospitals, respectively. Each of these centres will be projected to deal with 25,000 urgent care and 15,000 outpatient attendances each year. Each centre will provide consultant led urgent care by staff at the new children's hospital, with observation beds, appropriate diagnostics and secondary outpatient services, including rapid access general paediatric clinics.

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