Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Solidarity welcomes the opportunity to discuss the delivery of the new children's hospital and how best to deliver quality health care for children. We have serious misgivings about the cost of the new hospital. As the motion outlines, there has been an increase in the cost from €404 million in 2012 to approximately €1 billion in 2017. We are told that much of the added cost is due to inflation but also as a result of the problems of building a hospital in the city centre, with all the ancillary costs relating to the relocation of existing pipes and infrastructure, difficulties regarding access and the logistics of building within a crowded site for construction traffic. The general guideline for building hospitals is that the cost should be approximately €1 million per bed. This would include the cost of equipment. The new children's hospital would have 473 beds for patients and family accommodation space for 53 persons. This shows how expensive it is at almost €1 billion. It seems that this will be one of the most expensive hospitals ever built. I understand that only one other hospital - located in Australia - is more expensive but this hospital has a far higher degree of technology and automation, even down to the distribution of meals.

While the new National Children’s Hospital will be modern, I do not believe it is gong to be that modern.

The Director General of the HSE Tony O’Brien told the Dáil Committee on the Future of Healthcare that there is not even a sufficient budget for the relocation of the hospital to the St. James’s Hospital site. My colleague Deputy Mick Barry was very concerned about this when it was raised at that Dáil committee last month. It would appear there is an insufficient budget in place not only for the new children’s hospital but also for important projects such as nursing homes, the transfer of the National Maternity Hospital to the St. Vincent’s site and the move of the Central Mental Hospital to Portrane. This is a very serious situation. Not having a sufficient budget for health is a political decision. I know that many of the parents listening and watching the debate today are aware of the Oxfam report on Opening the Vaults, published this week. In this State 16 of the top 20 European banks operating here have an effective tax rate of 6% on their profits. Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Crédit Agricole have an effective rate of 2% on profits they shifted here and yet the State does not have the money to build the National Children's Hospital. It is well known that now the Government is trying its best to not take €13 billion from Apple.

I will turn to the matter of the site location. In 2012 the Labour-Fine Gael Government made a decision to take the proposed children's hospital away from the Mater Hospital site and all of the controversies there. That Government decided not to locate it on a greenfield site but to locate the children’s hospital at St. James’s Hospital. That decision was the wrong decision. It was discussed at Fingal County Council when Connolly Hospital made a bid for the original proposal. This is going back many years. The spiralling of the costs has now reopened the debate around the location of the hospital and if it is now viable to revise the decision to locate the hospital at St. James’s. Some people have estimated a saving of €200 million if the building was done on a greenfield site. I have been contacted by large numbers of parents in the past few days who are wondering if it is not too late to build the hospital at Connolly and the two satellite centres at St. James’s and at Tallaght. The Solidarity Deputies will be voting for the motion because it calls on the Government at least to reconsider the location and to justify why a relocation is not to take place.

Access to St. James’s Hospital remains an issue. Obviously, the rural group of Deputies has raised this concern because it is to be a national hospital and proximity to the M50 is very important. I represent Fingal and the population there has doubled since 1991. It has the youngest population in the State and in western Europe. Given that the population there is almost 300,000, the idea that we would not have a children's hospital or a maternity hospital in Fingal is just incredible. The population there has risen from 152,000 to 296,000. The youngest population in the State does not have access to a hospital that it needs. When our children are ill we must bring them to Children's University Hospital, Temple Street and women must travel to give birth. The census figures from 2016 said that the rise in population has almost been entirely due to the natural rate of increase, namely the number of births and that there is a baby boom. This additional point is actually a huge issue for people within County Dublin as well as for people outside of Dublin.

I worked in St. James’s Hospital for four years in the 1990s. I cannot understand the original decision, having seen how crowded it is and how busy is that part of the city. Many ambulance drivers consider St. James’s Hospital to be one of the most difficult hospitals to access. There are local problems that need to be resolved also with transport and local infrastructure. Adding a new children's hospital and maternity hospital to the site would seem to be far too crowded. The proposed hospital will be for children right across the whole State. It will be important that parents are not caught up in traffic as they enter Dublin. Crucially, there is a need to have clear and rapid access for ambulances travelling to and from the children’s hospital. This would be best served by a location outside of the city centre and outside such a crowded site. If the hospital was located at Connolly Hospital there would also have to be work done on improving public transport and access but I believe it could be done more easily in that location. Connolly Hospital caters for every road traffic accident that occurs on the M50. Every single accident goes to Connolly Hospital because of its proximity to the M50. There is a reason why this site would be more accessible.

With regard to the Rotunda Hospital relocation, the new children’s hospital should be located alongside a maternity hospital. The original debate focused on the bi-location being with an adult hospital but a maternity hospital is more important. The motion before the House makes the point about a maternity service being corridor-linked to the new children’s hospital. This would mean newborns with particular difficulties could be aided quickly without recourse to an ambulance. The supporters of the St. James’s site mention the co-location with the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital that is due to happen. There is a difficulty with this, however, and it again shows why there may be problems with the St. James’s site. The Rotunda Hospital is due to move to Connolly Hospital and it will move into a greenfield site. Clearly, the problems with the cost of building that we are experiencing now is highly likely to happen all over again when building commences on the Coombe relocation. The potential locations for the Coombe Hospital on the St. James’s site would involve demolition of existing buildings and the relocation of existing services in St. James’s Hospital.

I shall conclude. I am sure that many people have seen the harrowing account given by parents on the "Claire Byrne Live" programme on Monday night. The piece was about the lack of transplants available for children in the State. I believe that since the programme aired announcements in that regard were made yesterday. The idea is outrageous that transplants could not be done for children in Ireland. The operations are not necessarily the most complex. They can be done and we have the skills to carry them out. I hope the parents will get some solace that by bringing their stories out it may have led to this decision, although it really should not have come to this.

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