Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

Opposition Members often are criticised by Senator Mary White when they do not listen to her wonderful contributions in this House every now and again. I do not believe she was listening to Senator Fitzgerald's earlier comments when she described the latter's contribution as unedifying. I thought Senator Fitzgerald was quite conciliatory in her approach and that in general she was highly supportive of what the Minister is setting out to do in this regard.

The construction of a new state-of-the-art children's hospital would be a most welcome development in health care in Ireland. We have a long and proud tradition of providing excellent health care for children in our existing children's hospitals despite the fact that the staff operating in those hospitals do so in what often are highly difficult conditions. However, that collective knowledge and experience amassed over decades would allow us to scale new heights of excellence and that is the primary thinking behind this new hospital plan. International best practice requires that for a country of our size and population, there should be one facility, and one facility only, for the treatment of seriously ill children with cancer, cardiac problems, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and other serious conditions.

This is the reason I was somewhat mystified earlier by Senator Norris's contribution in which he cited a discussion he heard on radio regarding a lady who rushed her child, who had a threatened ruptured appendix, to hospital in Dublin city centre. I cannot discern how that anecdote plays into this debate. The primary aim of setting out to construct this hospital is to provide world-class tertiary care for seriously ill children. A child with a ruptured appendix from Galway, Donegal or Kerry will not be placed in a car and driven to the Mater hospital. Consequently, this argument simply does not stand up to scrutiny. On that basis, all Members must be highly supportive of this concept.

Until quite recently, I and others were reasonably content that plans for the new hospital were moving ahead quite well until the unexpected resignation of Mr. Philip Lynch, who was chairman of the-----