Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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80. To ask the Minister for Health if her Department’s review of the development control plan and strategic assessment report for the University Hospital Galway campus has been completed to date; if not, the expected timeline for the review to be completed and the documents returned to the HSE; the details of the enabling works underway; the details of any further enabling works planned; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52567/25]

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Connolly notified us that she might be late. We will take her priority question now.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for exercising his discretion. It is back to the matter of University Hospital Galway. I know the Minister is familiar with it now. I am asking very specific questions in relation to her Department's review of the development control plan and the strategic assessment report for the University Hospital Galway campus. Has it been completed? What is its status, if it has not been completed? When will it be completed? What are the details of the enabling works under way at the moment? What further enabling works are necessary?

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. While we have already invested in the University Hospital Galway campuses, there are significant proposals, as the Deputy is aware, for further investments there. The integrated development control plan, DCP, has been informed by population health needs and clinical demand. That has been developed and now provides a clear masterplan for the sequencing and delivery of new facilities. My Department has received a copy of the DCP and a programme strategic assessment report, SAR, which are currently being reviewed against infrastructure guideline requirements. In parallel, the preliminary business case for the first phase of works is under development. The SAR feedback will be returned to the HSE in the coming weeks for inclusion within it.

A considerable amount of enabling works will be required to deliver the masterplan. The phased transfer of outpatient services from UHG to Merlin Park continues, with phase 1 of the outpatient department block now operational and phase 2 at design stage, which will unlock a portion of the campus. The initial scoping and site investigative works at UHG for various enabling works was recently completed. Site clearance works have already been undertaken to begin to clear the site for the first of the new 150-bed ward block. These include the removal of all above-ground prefab and solid structures on the footprint of the proposed development site and the diversion of a number of underground services. The old neurology building was recently demolished following the relocation of this service to Merlin Park.

Further enabling works are currently at detailed design stage and will proceed to construction in early 2026. Beyond those, there is another tender to appoint an integrated design team for further works, which will conclude by the end of 2025, with further design work starting in early 2026.

A tender is under way for construction of a new electrical energy centre to enhance campus resilience and support future developments there.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply. I will look at it in detail. When I look back at the history of this, the language keeps changing. There is now a strategic plan, a preliminary business case and the strategic assessment report. I welcome what the Minister has given me and the face we will make progress but in 2014, the then Minister, Leo Varadkar, said a new hospital and a new building was the only solution. I will not go through all of this but the questions and answers over the last five years do not give hope this will be completed. The Minister says the two things I have asked for are with her Department and will be going back to the HSE in the next few weeks. I take it that will happen in the next few weeks. A preliminary business case is under way. Who will carry that out and when will that be completed?

The Minister has given details on the enabling works. When will the plan be implemented? Is there any overall date for when the master plan will be implemented?

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is a master plan that is developed sequentially. The Deputy can see the complexity of the work that is going on there with the diversion of underground services. It is incredibly complex work. Deputy Connolly knows the site a great deal better than I do, of course, and it is an old site that requires considerable development work. The last thing I will do is place a timeline on it. I just want to see things progressing and I hope that by the time the Deputy asks me this question on the next occasion, unless of course other matters have taken over, I will have a further update on the business cases.

I will make a couple of important points about how Galway hospital is improving in a couple of other areas because it is important. It recently moved the outpatient department to the facility in Merlin Park but it has recently changed its model of delivery to three-hour slots, three sessions a day, from what had been a two-session model, and that is providing an additional 60 clinical sessions every month. That is a really important and significant change for the people of Galway and for the management of the hospital. The Deputy will be better aware than I am that construction of the surgical hub is well under way. It is expected to be completed in quarter 1 of 2026 and to be operational in quarter 2 of 2026.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I agree with the Minister. I know the hospital very well and I know about the very good services that are provided there. When people get a service, it is absolutely brilliant and I have no problem saying that. I am a committed believer in the public health system. My difficulty is that as we speak, there are 35 people on trolleys, or there was that number yesterday. It has been under enormous pressure for a very long time. I spared the Minister the reading-out of the various comments and all the timelines that were given for different plans to be completed, none of which have been completed. They came forward to the Department of Health, they went back down and they came back up. We then got an oversight management team and many other objectives that were never delivered.

In my opinion, a brand new hospital should have been built in Merlin Park but that did not happen. That was actually the options appraisal that was carried out and it said we should build a brand new one. The Government did not give permission for that so we went back to a congested site with many plans going in lots of directions. That is what we have now. At this stage, all I can do is keep the pressure on to get delivery.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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That seems perfectly reasonable and that is what I would do too. As the Deputy has saved me the background, I will save her reading out all of the trolley figures. I will highlight that unless Galway hospital, and the west and north west generally, start to routinely roster consultants on the public-only consultant contract at the weekends, they will continue to have the trolley difficulties they have had. It is very important. A total of 73% of University Hospital Galway's consultants have taken up the public-only consultant contract but the hospital was not able to confirm to me, at an important meeting on this on 11 September, the percentage of those who are routinely working extended days and at weekends.

I will be meeting the team again in January and I expect it will have an update for me on their weekend rostering. To the extent the Deputy can help me maintain that pressure, nothing will change in Galway with trolleys or across the west and north west until consultants are routinely rostered at weekends, as is happening in other hospitals.