Eamonn Coghlan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to address something which I have raised here in the Seanad on a number of occasions. Before I put the question to the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, I want to put on record that I have been very much involved with the Children's Medical and Research Foundation in Crumlin for 29 years, being on the board in the United States as a volunteer and also as an employee, as director of fund-raising development. Over the years, between our golf, marathons, cycles, direct marketing campaigns, corporate and philanthropic work, we have raised many millions of euro between building the new accident and emergency unit, the burns unit, the €14 million new medical tower, the new cardiac ward that is presently underway and almost complete, and the new cancer unit. Only last week, I was in New York city with our New York board establishing a new fund-raising campaign for next year where we hope to raise in excess of €1 million towards the hospital. However, this is all about the new children's hospital to which I refer.
The national paediatric hospital website states:

The new children's hospital is the largest, most complex and significant capital investment project ever undertaken in healthcare in Ireland. ...
It will be tri-located on one campus with St James's Hospital and a planned maternity hospital. This tri-location model of service delivery is being undertaken to ensure the best outcomes for our children and young people, for mothers and for infants.
[It] will be a world-class facility.

On tri-location, it states:

Tri-location of paediatric, adult and maternity services has benefits for children and young people, for neonates and for mothers. It allows specialist expertise to be shared across all three hospitals, along with a campus-wide approach to sharing non-clinical services and infrastructure. And it provides the scale and scope for shared learning in clinical practice, research, innovation and education.

On 24 September last, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, stated:

Today marks another major milestone for the new children's hospital. It's full steam ahead ... Ireland's children deserve a world-class hospital. We've been promising it and talking about it for far too long. Let's get building.

The concern and issue I have, a concern which is shared by many paediatricians from all over the country, is that it is all well to be co-located with an adult hospital for the reasons of the specialties that are in St. James's Hospital, but their emphasis is on maternity hospitals. My questions in the past have been: is the new paediatric hospital planning to seek planning permission for the maternity hospital at the same time it seeks planning permission for the new paediatric hospital in St. James's Hospital, and if not, why? It would be unfortunate if it took another 20 years, similar to the period from 1936, when Crumlin was designed, to 1956 before it was built, and that of Tallaght hospital, which was almost 18 years from design to planning. I only hope that this tri-location will be covered at exactly the same time and planning permission is being sought for both the paediatric and maternity hospitals.