Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for raising this issue.

The new children’s hospital project includes a state-of-the-art facility being developed on the campus shared with St. James’s Hospital and the associated two outpatient and urgent care centres on the campuses shared with Connolly and Tallaght hospitals. The new hospital will become the single national tertiary-quaternary centre for highly specialised paediatric care for children from all over Ireland and will have the critical mass necessary to deliver best outcomes. Together with its two paediatric outpatients and urgent care centres, it will provide all secondary, or less specialised, acute paediatric care for children from the greater Dublin area.

The health capital allocation in 2019 is €567 million for the construction and equipping of health facilities. Following the publication of its national service plan for 2019, the Health Service Executive, HSE, is developing its capital plan for this year. The latter will determine the projects that will progress in 2019, having regard to the available capital funding, the number of large national capital projects under way and the relevant priority of each. In this context, the Deputies will be aware of the increased capital costs associated with the new children’s hospital and the approval by the Government of the investment to proceed with the building of the facility. In developing its capital plan for 2019, the HSE must consider: the amount contractually committed in 2019; its annual requirement to meet risks associated with clinical equipment, ambulances and healthcare infrastructure; and the total capital Exchequer funding required for the new children’s hospital in 2019. The Government has agreed that the project will proceed in 2019 to completion in 2022.

The impact on non-contracted capital commitments for the health services is that a selection of health capital projects and programmes will be delayed to contribute to funding the increased capital cost of the new children’s hospital project from within the existing health capital allocation. Health capital projects, including the development of additional beds at University Hospital Limerick, will be considered in the context of developing the HSE’s capital plan for 2019. The additional costs associated with building the new children’s hospital are of grave concern to the Government. While it fully supports this project, the Government must have assurance that construction will be delivered within the current budget and timescale. The Government will work to minimise the effect of the increased costs of developing the hospital. We must remember, however, that we are developing a world-class facility which will support the implementation of a new model of care for the children of Ireland. It will have a profound impact on all paediatric services when open.

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