Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

I thank the Tánaiste. It is unusual we are 100% agreed on both sides of the House that this needs to happen. This is a health emergency and under Covid guidelines we were led to do an awful lot of things under health emergencies. We had John Wall with us yesterday as a patient safety advocate. We have an emergency. Why can we not use emergency powers and legislate that this happen now? We have the commitment of the House that it needs to happen now. The people of the mid-west need this now. The biggest thing here is we have gone almost €1 billion over budget with the children's hospital here in Dublin. That would build the hospital in Limerick and cater for a lot of people. Build a box and put a box on top of that box. We have not even looked at what it is going to cost to maintain the outside of the children's hospital due to all the curvatures and glass. It is about the care within a building. The old two-storey Georgian houses have been here for generations and are beautiful-looking houses. They are boxes. Why can we not just build a box and care for the people who deserve the care, and stop all these expensive designs? It is about the care and the equipment in the building, it is not about the look of a building.

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