Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for travelling up to the Chamber today, but I regret no one is here from the Department of Health to address this Commencement matter. University Hospital Galway, UHG, is a model 4 hospital providing 24-7 acute surgery, acute medicine and critical care services for Galway and the region. I acknowledge the front-line staff and management who have been operating under difficult conditions because of the impact of Covid-19 for nearly a year now. The staff in the hospital, and especially the accident and emergency department, have managed to provide those services for many decades now.

In December 2015, during Leaders' Questions, the then Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, proclaimed in the Dáil that "the emergency department at University College Galway [was] not fit for purpose". In February 2017, funding was provided for the design phase of a new accident and emergency department. The project was included in Project Ireland 2040. During a visit to University Hospital Galway in September 2018 by the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, we were told by the Saolta University Health Care Group that the planning application would be lodged before Christmas of that year. It was then to be lodged by February 2019. We were then assured that the options appraisal, which was the evaluation of the best use of lands, with a new UHG in Merlin Park, was not going to delay the application.

We were assured that process was not going to delay the application, and that we would not be waiting for that options appraisal to be published before a planning application was lodged. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The options appraisal was published, and thankfully it did state that an accident and emergency department should be proceeded with on the site of UHG. The planning application, however, had still not been lodged. The Saolta group's design team had designed a seven-storey building, with five storeys for the accident and emergency department and the top two floors for paediatrics and maternity services. It was recommended that the original application should go with a shell and core design, where the top two floors would not be fully designed. They would be allowed to go to planning, and then be designed later.Then that changed, which was positive as they were progressing the top two floors, but that caused a further delay. They were told to do a full fit-out design on the project and that led to another delay in the project.

When I raised this matter with the Minister for Health at a committee meeting in early November, he provided me with information that had previously been provided in response to a parliamentary question tabled by my colleague, Deputy Dillon. The Minister said, "This answer is not satisfactory for the Senator and I am, therefore, going to ask for an additional note on an indicative timeline as to when this will be done, as this is the question he asked, and it needs to be answered." That question still has not been answered. Anything I say is certainly not a personal comment about the Minister but comes from sheer frustration about the abject delays in a project that everybody needs and wants. The staff do Trojan work. The patients absolutely need this project, which is being delayed not by a lack of funding or by Government procrastination, but by the inability of the Saolta University Health Care Group to lodge a planning application. The group engaged with the city council about a bus corridor, which was welcome, but that delayed the project. The shell and core design also delayed the project. Everything seems to have delayed a vital new emergency department. The existing department was described in the Dáil, by the Taoiseach, as being not fit for purpose over five years ago. I am absolutely frustrated about the lack of progress in lodging a planning application, never mind all of the rest that has to be done to ensure there are tender and construction documents, etc. I look forward to the Minister of State's reply.