Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group for their work on this motion. I also thank Deputy Mattie McGrath's office staff, his daughter, Triona, and David in his office for their hard work on this motion. I also thank and welcome the people in the Public Gallery who kindly came here today to support this motion.

I honestly believe the Government has dropped the ball big time on this issue. First, it is never too late to admit a mistake was made or never too late to reverse a decision. The location and the cost of this project are my biggest concerns. On the location of a national children's hospital, it is a building of paramount importance for all our children and the children of the next 100 years. Staff at the children's hospitals were never consulted regarding the choice of site, nor were many patients or parents' groups. A total of 73% of members of the public believe it is the wrong site, as do the majority of the city and county councils. It is the worst site for access in the country.

The Government has stated that its decision that the new children’s hospital should be co-located with St. James’s on its campus followed a lengthy process of examination led by three professors of paediatrics in the three universities. It stated that Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, Temple Street Children’s University Hospital and the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, collectively support the campus at St. James’s Hospital as the selected location for the new children’s hospital. This is very misleading. The medical board of Crumlin hospital was never asked and never gave its approval. The children’s hospital in Tallaght does not have its own medical board, being part of the main adult hospital board. Members of the faculty of paediatrics were never consulted regarding location and neither were staff of the children’s hospitals.

It is recorded in the minutes of the Dolphin group that on meeting the chief executive officers and chairpersons of the medical boards of Crumlin, Tallaght and Temple Street - the meeting was held on 26 April 2012 - the hospital representatives stated that they would support the decision on location when made. The location decision is a function of Government. Had Connolly Hospital been chosen by Cabinet, this statement to the Dolphin group indicates the three children’s hospitals would be fully supportive.

No report ever recommended the St. James's site. There is no such claim in the Dolphin report. It states that St. James’s Hospital best meets the criteria to be the adult co-located hospital from "a clinical and academic perspective" and that from "a design and planning perspective the sites adjoining Connolly and the Coombe hospital offered the best potential for future expansion and a landscaped setting". The Dolphin report never claimed that the St James's had the best site, in fact, it states it has "drawbacks in terms of site suitability".

It was also stated by Government that:

The vast majority (78%) of children currently attending the existing three children’s hospitals come from within the Greater Dublin Area that is Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. These children will be served in the future by the hospital and the two new Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Centres at Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals. This arrangement means that General Paediatrics and Urgent Care services are local and convenient in the Dublin area. 22% of the patients currently attending the three Dublin Children’s hospitals are children from outside the Greater Dublin Area who require specialist services ... which will be provided in the new children’s hospital in a campus shared with St. James’ Hospital when it opens in 2021.

I wish to highlight again that the world does not stop at the Red Cow roundabout. This is all a grossly misleading use of statistics. Approximately 66% of children in the greater Dublin area live outside the M50 and a significant proportion of the remaining 33% who live inside the greater Dublin area live close to the M50. In fact, 90% of children in the country live outside the M50. Postal addresses are not an indicator of frequency or intensity of hospital attendance. Tertiary patients are intensive users with longer stays in hospital and nine out of ten of them live outside the M50.

The expected cost of this hospital in 2012 was €440 million, by the time the contract was awarded to the St. James’s site, it had jumped to €485 million, when the application for planning permission was submitted two years ago it leaped to €650 million and today the estimated figure is to exceed €1 billion. Where is the name of God will this debacle stop? Before the monster gets any bigger, I ask the Minister and the Government to examine this matter and take on board this motion.

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