Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let me start with the Coombe. I acknowledge we are here to talk about the PwC report, to which I will come, but the matter of the Coombe is intrinsically related. The Minister had to leave momentarily when I was asking questions. He told me last week no funding has been allocated this year to even begin the design and planning phase for moving the Coombe to the site of the maternity hospital. I believe he and I agree it is essential. The idea that maternity services co-location is essential was sold to this House. When the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, was the Minister for Health, he gave a commitment indicating the planning and design associated with moving the Coombe and the building of the children's hospital would happen at the same time. If there is no funding available in this year's budget, it means the earliest one could even begin the process is 2020, which is five years after we were told the process was meant to begin.

We obviously have to be very careful about supplementary allocations but I ask the Minister to immediately allocate additional funding so the design and planning for the Coombe can start right now. Fianna Fáil will support him in this. As he knows, the master of the Coombe was before the Committee of Public Accounts and has been speaking publicly. I do not know how accurate or strong some of the comments are but we will assume the master is an expert and has a fair idea of some of the politics. There were some very worrying remarks. For example, he made the point that St. James's is naturally seeking to expand all the time and that it might be looking at the three and a half acres with a view to expanding.

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Notwithstanding the project itself, the total disaster that is the financial end of the hospital will greatly concern people in terms of building another hospital there. The current project will suck up capital and healthcare funding that would have been used for that new hospital. We have to get moving on this and do so right now. Will the Minister commit, effectively immediately, to getting new money and getting the design and planning phase going straight away?

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