Fiona O'Malley (Independent)

I am grateful to the Leader for arranging this debate and to those Senators who proposed that the House discuss the matter. I am becoming increasingly angry as I listen to this debate. Given our fixation with doom and gloom, it was nice to have a Minister giving the House a good news story. How has it been received? We have heard only that the Minister has taken the wrong course of action. Despite the fact that a world class facility for children, one that is unique in Europe, is about to be provided, all I have heard are complaints about its location. We have lost the run of ourselves.

Senator Prendergast referred to Noel Smyth. Since when has Mr. Smyth been an expert on hospital location? Why does the Senator give him such credence? I cannot believe the nonsense I have heard. I presume Mr. Smyth would like to enjoy the advantages of having a large hospital located beside the site he owns. Senators should cop on. Are Members of this House and the other House fools?

On the resignation of Mr. Philip Lynch, the Minister would have been perfectly entitled to sack Mr. Lynch. Politicians, specifically the Government, are castigated time and again for failing to make decisions. The decision on the location of the new children's hospital has been made and we must live with it and move on. The national broadcaster has been giving air time to taxi drivers to tell us what a stupid decision has been made. Since when have taxi drivers been experts on hospital location?

I was thoroughly disappointed by the decision of the Opposition spokesperson on children in the other House, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, to jump on the bandwagon and seek to score a quick political point against a somewhat beleaguered Government. Rather than looking at the bigger picture, the Deputy decided to score a goal against an easy target. We must accept that a decision has been made to invest in a world class facility for children.

Deputy Gilmore was hoist with his own petard last week when, having stated that the Labour Party would not support the budget, he added that his party would not reverse any of the decisions made in the budget. Similarly, the next Government will not waste the millions of euro spent on the decision to locate the new children's hospital at the Mater Hospital site.

The opinions I value most on this issue are those of consultants, that is, the medical experts, and the parents of sick children. As one recent letter to The Irish Times noted, access does not matter when one has a child. While I am not a parent, I imagine that parents of a sick child would not care where they had to go provided the best possible medical attention was available.

The Minister has not sold the message that the highest possible standards will be available in the new hospital. I understand equivalent standards are available in only two other hospitals in the United States and that they may not be available elsewhere in Europe. Why is everyone not rallying behind the proposal and welcoming this good news? We are proceeding with the project because it is what children need and what parents want.

During my time serving on the Joint Committee on Health and Children, of which the Minister of State and Acting Chairman, Senator Feeney, were also members, I came to realise that being competitive is part of human nature, especially in an adversarial political system. Conventional politics, however, does not hold a candle to medical politics. During a discussion with a delegation, members of the joint committee discovered that a position of consultant in paediatric care, for which the Government had provided funding, remained vacant for ten years because the three hospitals concerned could not agree on where the new post should be located.

If this is not medical politics at its worst, I do not know what is. It was an outrage and this was when I lost faith in people who agreed on having a hospital but not on deciding on a location or on who would win or lose out as a result. In those circumstances, one must stop listening to them. This is the reason I am somewhat disgusted with those who continue to listen to this point because it is only medical politics that is getting in the way of driving forward this project. I wish it could be put to one side and the fact embraced that people who know about such matters have decided on a location for the facility. The most important thing is to get on and to build it.

In conclusion, I was somewhat disappointed by Senator Norris's contribution. Although he is someone who usually has a can-do attitude, I refer to his complete defeatism on the grounds that the project's budget has determined that €110 million must be raised through philanthropy. As for not going ahead with it because it might be difficult in these straitened times, I have never heard the like from him and was most disappointed by his attitude. Had we such an attitude, we would not get on with anything and nothing would get built. However, people who have associations or connections with Ireland time and again have put their hands in their pockets to support educational and many other ventures and I have no doubt but they will do so again. The Minister highlighted how the research budget will work as part of that philanthropic effort and again, this is about the commercialisation of research that I absolutely applaud and which should be pursued. The Minister was extremely transparent at all times and has invited someone such as Senator Norris to examine her files on the matter of what is going on at present. I am in agreement with Senator Fitzgerald that it is as clear as day that the Minister wants to build this project. All I ask of Members is to get behind it. As this decision has now been made, we should move forward and build the thing.