Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

First of all, I believe that design is important. Perhaps one of the issues with the new children's hospital - and which was reported in the PwC report - was that it did not have a finalised design prior to the contract issuing. That is one of the conclusions. That is my understanding and I stand to be corrected on that. I would not be against good design for a national children's hospital. That is important.

I would also make the point that there is a complexity in terms of a tertiary hospital where very complex surgery will be carried out, where rare diseases will be addressed, where world-class medicine will be deployed, in consultation with children's hospitals around the world and in accordance with established protocols in the paediatric medicine field. The positioning and placement of surgeries, for example, and the interlocking and integration of that with wards and so on-----

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