Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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91. To ask the Minister for Health the position regarding the national children's hospital; the extent the initial preparatory work in terms of planning permission and identification of the scale and size of the project has been identified and agreed; if agreement has been reached as to the full extent of services intended within the hospital complex; the extent to which previous expenditure relating to the Mater Hospital site in the sum of €50 million will be utilised by way of reduction in the capital costs of the current project; when he expects to be in a position to arrange for the start of the project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36506/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board is the statutory body responsible for planning, designing, building and equipping the new children's hospital. The new hospital will be co-located with St James's Hospital, and ultimately tri-located with a maternity hospital to be developed on campus. In addition to the main hospital, the project includes two satellite centres at the campuses of Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals.

The Project Brief for the hospital, prepared by the Development Board in conjunction with the Children's Hospital Group Board, was approved by the HSE in June 2014, with the prior consent of the Minister for Health. It sets out details of the specialties to be provided and the planned accommodation. This will include 384 in-patient beds, all in single en-suite rooms with in-room parent accommodation, a further 85 daycare beds and 14 theatres, including three hybrid theatres to facilitate access to imaging during surgery, all in the main hospital. There will be 111 outpatient consulting examination rooms across both the main hospital and the two satellite centres, as well as ED and urgent care facilities. Car parking for 1,000 vehicles is planned at the main hospital, while sufficient parking will also be provided at the satellite centres.

Approximately €39m was spent in the previous phase of this project at the Mater campus. Work undertaken for the project on that site, in particular development of activity projections and capacity requirements, development of functional requirements and decisions on workflow, adjacency planning and logistics, has been built on in developing the Project Brief for the hospital in its new location.

Following a rigorous procurement process, the design team for the project has been appointed and began work on designing the hospital in early August with the aim of submitting a planning application in June 2015. Ahead of this, the Development Board has been engaging with both Dublin City Council and An Bord Pleanala over the past number of months in relation to all planning issues and will continue to do so. Subject to planning permission, the project is expected to be on site at all three locations in January 2016.