Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Question 79: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the planned co-located hospitals which will be progressed; the projected date for the commencement of construction in each case; when she expects them to be operational; the number of beds which will be provided in each such hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39513/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The co-location programme is aimed at freeing up public acute hospital capacity for use for public patients and to enhance overall acute capacity at public hospital sites.

The renewed programme for Government re-affirms the Government's commitment to the current co-location programme. This means that the procurement process which is underway will continue. Projects will be developed within the terms of those project agreements which have been signed or which may be signed. Value for money criteria remain in place and are to be met by each project.

Considerable work has been done by the HSE and the preferred bidders despite, in recent times, the effects of the banking crisis on the timing and arrangement of large scale finance for major capital projects in every sector. Preferred bidders have been selected for the Beaumont, Cork University, Limerick Regional, St. James's, Sligo and Waterford Regional Hospital projects. Project agreements for the first four projects have been signed. Planning permission has been granted in respect of three of these and a planning application has been made in the case of the other project. The necessary preparatory work for the project agreements in respect of the Waterford Regional Hospital and Sligo Hospital projects is proceeding.

The total number of in-patient and day beds proposed in these six facilities is in excess of 1,200. This is exclusive of critical care beds, which will be provided in proportion to the in-patient capacity in each hospital. I am arranging to provide the Deputy with a tabular statement setting out the details for each of the projects. Two further projects at Connolly and Tallaght Hospitals are at earlier stages of the procurement process.

The HSE estimates that, from the start of building, the overall construction and commissioning period for the projects will be approximately 28 to 36 months.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I asked the Minister when the projects will start and when the beds will be available. It is four years and four months since these were announced and the intention was to provide extra beds. Four years and four months later the Minister cannot tell me when the beds will be ready. May I have a clear answer instead of all the waffle we are getting?

My second question was to know which projects are going ahead. The Minister indicated that the four for which agreements have been signed will go ahead and Waterford, Sligo and possibly others, Tallaght in particular. I do not know if the wool has been pulled over the Green Party's eyes but the revised programme for Government states that the Minister will "Proceed with the current programme of co-location limited to already committed projects under the existing project contractual agreements." Contracts have been agreed in only four projects. Is it four, six or seven? Will the Minister be clear and have the Greens been fooled?

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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I presume the Deputy saw the letter from the Taoiseach to her party leader. It refers to projects that are signed or to be signed. The Deputy may recognise that there is a serious financial and banking crisis affecting large projects in Ireland and elsewhere. We are affected by that. Private investors carry the risk for all this work. They must carry the banking risk and get the funding. I am optimistic that will happen. From the time that construction begins to commissioning will be somewhere in the region of 28 to 36 months.

The Deputy has an ideological problem with this but I invite Deputies to talk to people at St. James's Hospital or any of the public hospitals involved to hear their enthusiasm for this to proceed. I can quote from a letter from St. James's for example which states that this will allow the freeing up of a significant capacity, equivalent to 21% of its annual hospital admissions. It will allow the doctors to see all their patients within six hours in the accident and emergency department and all elective admissions to happen within three months, and so on and so forth.

There is no other money available to this country to provide additional capacity in our acute hospital system. The idea is to move private activity from the public hospital so that the public hospital, funded by the taxpayer, can deal with public patients. It is intended to keep consultants on site instead of having them work in multiple sites around the city, as the letter from St. James's states. The merits of this are enormous. The banking arrangements will be put in place. I hope to see some of these projects proceed very quickly.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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It is more than four years since these projects were announced as a way of fast-tracking beds. If the money had been given to the public system when it was available to build public beds we would have them by now.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Hear, hear.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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The hospitals are all for this now because they want the beds but they would have expected them long before now.

Is the programme for Government not accurate in saying that it has "already committed projects under the existing project contractual agreement"? I have seen the Taoiseach's letter to my party leader and it is different from the programme for Government.

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The programme for Government is exactly the same as the letter from the Taoiseach. Maybe some people misunderstand that. Some project agreements have been signed and some involved in negotiations are about to be signed. The commitments in the programme for Government cover all of those.

The issue here is to return our public hospital infrastructure as much as possible to public patients. More and more of our public hospital activity in recent years, prior to the recent consultant contract, has been private. That does not make any sense from the taxpayers' point of view or to those who are medically ill and need access to acute care. I want them to get that access. The bonus of collocation as opposed to private hospitals 5 miles down the road, which some people favour, is that the consultants, the critical medical manpower, stay on the one site.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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The Minister is institutionalising the separation of public and private patients.

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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There are two collocated hospitals in this city, the Mater and St. Vincent's and I do not see any great objection to them.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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The Minister has also fooled the Greens because that is not in the present programme for Government.