David Norris (Independent)

Will the Leader arrange either a debate on the siting of the children's hospital or for the making of a statement by the Minister on the matter? At the beginning of this process I had a motion on the Order Paper looking for an international peer review of the site selection process and I was advised by consultants on the matter. However, my call was denied, although it would only have taken one month to complete the review. I recently heard a woman on radio telling how she had brought her son who had appendicitis to the Mater Hospital. Because of a function which was taking place in Croke Park she could not get down the North Circular Road and had to go all the way around, eventually reaching the car park. She then could not get into the accident and emergency department from that end and had to take her son all the way up Eccles Street, around by Berkeley Road and down the North Circular Road. By the time they got into the hospital he was very ill and his appendix ruptured before he got to the operating theatre.

We then saw the resignation of Mr. Philip Lynch who instanced a funding gap of €110 million, to which I have adverted. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, went on the airwaves to say one could not change the destination of a train once it had left the station. I advise her to visit Kingsbridge Station, renamed Seán Heuston Station, where one can catch trains the direction of which can be changed by a judicious use of the points system. One can travel to Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Tralee and Westport. The expert was not asked whether the hospital should be built on the Eccles Street site but whether it could be built there. The instance the Minister gave of Chicago is also misleading. The site of that hospital was the least positive and most negative factor in its development.

I am surprised by the support the Minister has been given by Mr. Frank McDonald. However, I am talking against myself to a certain extent, as it is important that the hospital is built. To be supported by Mr. McDonald when one of the crucial transport elements of the plan is the metro north project that he has devoted his entire career to sabotaging and undermining suggests a certain degree of confusion. It is important, therefore, that we have the matter clarified and, in the interests of our sick children, the hospital built at in the best site and with the maximum speed.