Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have no doubt this service will see additionality from July in regard to paediatric healthcare. I take the points the Deputy makes that if we are just taking a doctor from here to there, that is not additionality. I genuinely have no doubt it will bring additionality in terms of extra appointments for children. I outlined in my last answer the volume I expect as a result of this centre opening, which is roughly 6,000 additional appointments for children in the Irish healthcare service between July and December of this year compared with last year.

I can only take people at their word. I met Children’s Health Ireland recently and I also met the consultants, perhaps the same ones the Deputy met. In any case, I have had similar conversations and that is one of the reasons I scrutinised this a bit further. Children’s Health Ireland has told me it has filled ten consultant posts, six of them in paediatric emergency medicine and four of them in general paediatrics. What it has said in terms of the initial opening hours is that it wants to look at community need and patient volume before deciding what are the best hours to open the service. That is what it has told me and it has said it will revert to us in that regard.

The Deputy is quite correct to make the point about radiology and the like. It has plans in place in that regard, be it locum cover initially or the outsourcing to imaging services, should that be required and I not saying yet that it will be required. I am confident it has plans in place, including contingency plans, to ensure this facility will open in July.

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