Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has not given any additional reassurance that the project will be funded to phase 3 and beyond. He says it is included in the Project Ireland 2040 initiative. That is little comfort to those who are waiting for this investment. I assume the Minister of State is referring to the national development plan, which still has many years to run. Without this investment, paediatric care in Cork will continue to be delivered inefficiently across two sites, Cork University Hospital and the Mercy University Hospital, and surgical services for children will continue to be provided in a scattered away across three sites, including those two hospitals and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital. Children's surgeries are performed in the middle of adult lists, with no guarantee of having anaesthetic, surgical or theatre staff trained in the care of children.

This project must advance. I acknowledge that it is funded up to phase 2 but we need a capital commitment from the HSE and the Government to ensure that this project can move through detailed design, tender and construction and that the specialist care can be provided locally. The consequences otherwise are that more of the cases currently dealt with in Cork will end up having to travel to Dublin. That is not just an inconvenience but the national children's hospital, expensive though it is, is not designed to absorb additional capacity that is currently being met regionally in places such as Cork University Hospital. It is not often that clinicians come to us to explain the urgency of a project. For the children of Cork, Kerry and the wider area, the development of this paediatric unit is urgent and I hope that the Minister will lend his full support to get this over the line and make sure that it does not end up at the back of a long queue of projects.

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