Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach's office for choosing this Commencement matter for debate. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, to the Chamber.

I have raised this topic on a number of occasions with the Minister of State’s colleagues, the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, who has been in the House a number of times, and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins. Unfortunately, the senior Minister has not been to the Chamber as I would like to raise directly with him the ongoing and long-running saga of the new emergency department for University Hospital Galway, UHG. We been talking for a long number of years about the need for a new emergency department. When the Taoiseach, the Minister of State’s party leader, appeared before us before Christmas, I reminded him that he raised this matter with the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, in 2015. The then Taoiseach responded at the time that the emergency department in Galway was not fit for purpose. It had not been fit for purpose for a long time before or since and it is not fit for purpose now.

There are plans for a new emergency department, including a paediatrics and maternity ward beside the existing emergency department. Works are ongoing on a new temporary emergency department to allow for decanting and the construction of a new emergency department. I have said in respect of many construction projects that nothing can be built without planning permission. We have not even reached the stage in Galway where a planning application has been lodged for a new emergency department.

When the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, visited Galway in September 2018 he was told by the Saolta University Health Care Group that a planning application would be lodged before Christmas 2018. The project specification has changed somewhat since then, which I appreciate. However, considering that the project was so advanced at that stage, with so much work having been done on finalising the design, I still cannot get my head around the fact that all of these years later, and accepting Covid-19 and all that goes with it, we have not yet got to the stage where we can give a concrete date for lodging the planning application. That is without mentioning all the other phases - I hope of course that planning permission will be granted - of detailed design, tender documents, contractors and construction.

There is a long way to go in this process and I understand from engagement with the Saolta group that this project still has to go to the HSE board, the Department of Health, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Cabinet for signing off before a planning application can be lodged. If she has been provided with the information, I ask the Minister of State to set out some timelines for those stages, the current position in relation to them, whether they can be completed in a short period and whether it is just a case of rubber-stamping them.

The Minister of State will appreciate the frustration in Galway, particularly among hospital staff and those who have received excellent care in the hospital but have endured conditions that are less than ideal and which, in the words of Enda Kenny, are not fit for purpose. She will understand the frustration among staff, management and members of the public in Galway. As I said, people have received excellent healthcare but the facilities are not what they should be for a centre of excellence in a regional capital of the west covering an area that extends from Donegal to Galway. I hope the Minister of State will provide some better news than I have received heretofore. There needs to be some concrete dates on the delivery of this project, the lodging of the planning application and the various stages to allow it to proceed to construction.