Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody who assisted in the work on this motion. I thank everybody who assisted with this motion including the staff in my office, Triona, David and Maureen. I also thank my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group for agreeing to the putting forward of this motion and putting so much time, energy and effort into it. I welcome our guests today, the sick children and their families, little Corey and her mum, Jonathan from the Jack and Jill Foundation and his team. I thank them all for giving up their time. I thank the Minister and the Minister of State for being here today but I am disappointed with the attendance for the debate around the House. I thank the ushers for their forbearance with all the guests to the House today.

First, I extend my thanks and admiration to all the families of sick children. In the limited time I have, I want to pay tribute to the amazing work that has been done on this issue by the Jack and Jill Foundation, Connolly for Kids and the New Children’s Hospital Alliance. I know many of them will be extremely frustrated at having to sit through this debate and listen to the same old spin and the same false and misleading statements being made.

It is a national disgrace that the interests and vanities of medical academics, certain third level institutions like our neighbours, Trinity College, and the political inability to admit a mistake has taken precedence over the pleas of parents and sick children.

None of the arguments put forward by the Minister or his party have allayed the fears of the parents of all these sick children. What is equally galling is that we know there are members in each of the main parties who explicitly accept that this is the wrong site but have somehow convinced themselves that getting the hospital built now is more important than getting it built in the right place. That is another falsehood I want to debunk because we believe - and have evidence to support this and doctors who agree with this - the hospital would be built as quickly on a greenfield site. I am involved in construction, as are other Members, and they know that it would be much easier to build the hospital on a greenfield site and where the best clinical outcomes could be achieved with co-location where one has the necessary space. I will reiterate a saying of Mahatma Ghandi, "It doesn’t really matter how fast you’re going if you’re heading in the wrong direction." I truly believe that and I will continue to believe it until I am proved otherwise.

All of the assurances of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board ring hollow to the parents' ears because they know what it is like to sit with terror in their hearts as their sick children sit in congested traffic and struggle for their tiny lives. We need to think seriously about this issue. Let us imagine the scene. A frightened mother or father in the back of an ambulance and beside them their child is getting weaker and weaker and the journey seems to be getting longer and longer with every passing breath. The paramedic in the back calls out to his colleague asking how far is there left to go. He does not think the child can survive. There is panic. There is also heavy traffic and narrow streets to get through. This is not a figment of our imagination. This is taken directly from the experience of ambulance drivers who cannot conceive why the madness of this project is being pursued and they were also never consulted on it.

It is my great fear that we will be back here in a few short years talking about the completely avoidable deaths that have unfortunately taken place when vulnerable, high-risk babies had to travel from rural Ireland, or even some parts of Dublin, to gain access to the congested St. James's site. I hope that day never comes but I fear it will if we persist in the madness of pursuing the present location of the national children' hospital. Some of my colleagues have outlined the reasons the project at its current site should not continue and other colleagues will also do so. There will be some repetition in the debate. We are dealing with fake news. We all know where that comes from, but this is fake news if we ever saw it, right here on our doorstep, and we must rebut it at all costs.

It is has been almost a full-time job trying to counter the professional spin and aggressive tactics used by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board to push the project over the line. No fewer than 18 hired guns, as I call them - pretty eminent people in their own right - arrived this day last week into the audio-visual room. I am not questioning their professionalism but I am questioning the fact they came in to convince everyone. There were 18 of them, all paid people, yet Connolly for Kids could only come in with two or three guests or volunteers who are passionate about what is right and what is wrong. We did not need 18 people to half fill the audio-visual room in case we thought we would not have a crowd. The 18 were a kind of rent-a-crowd. I am not questioning their professionalism as medics but I am questioning their professionalism regarding this site. On the one hand, we have families and passionate medical professionals and, on the other, those who will stoop to any level to see their trophy project kicked over the line and out of the reach of the parents and their campaigners.

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