Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister did that. It is public.

The Government line is that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, found an additional €200 million this summer which will be used to fund the children's hospital and broadband projects. However, the children's hospital needs more than an additional €100 million a year for four years, and it is far from clear from where the deficit is to be made up. The capital plan, which lacks detail and uses woolly language with the word "progress" appearing about 25 times in relation to the project, does not provide the answer.

Another matter causes me great concern and I have raised it before. It is disgraceful that eight private outpatient consultant rooms will be part of the overall cost. The Government has stated that it is in the consultants' contracts that they must be put in place but this is against the backdrop of Sláintecare which is supposed to provide public healthcare for everybody.

The children's health group which will run the hospital announced that the proposal is for consultants to pay a fee for the use of the rooms and other operational costs. Is this the case? Will they pay for the labs and to access diagnostic facilities? Will that be transparent and out in the open so that people can see exactly how much it costs and how much consultants are paid?

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