Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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181. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which the plans for the national children’s hospital have been advanced; the degree to which the proposed site has been architecturally married to the development; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3024/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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182. To ask the Minister for Health the number of bed spaces and extent of facilities likely to be provided for in the context of the national children’s hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3025/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 181 and 182 together.

The new children's hospital will be co-located with St James's Hospital, and ultimately tri-located with a maternity hospital to be developed on campus. The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board is the statutory body responsible for planning, designing, building and equipping the new children's hospital. Since the decision to locate the hospital at the St. James's campus, the Board's initial focus was on decant planning; site surveys and investigations; design team procurement; and review and update of the Project Brief to take account of the new site. The revised Project Brief also took account of the outcome of a review of the location, model and number of urgent care centres which was undertaken in 2013. Following that review, which involved significant consultation with the relevant stakeholders, it was decided that satellite centres, which will share governance and staffing with the new children's hospital, will be built on the campuses of Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals.

The Project Brief was approved in June 2014 and 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 day-care 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 Emergency Department and urgent care facilities.

Accommodation will also include family accommodation near the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit/Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, as well as in-room parent accommodation and separate family accommodation adjacent to the hospital (planned to be provided on a philanthropic basis by a charitable agency); play areas, external gardens and courtyards; specialist therapy area with hydro-pool and gym; and a family resource and information centre. The Project Brief also sets out the design principles which will be applied in the design. In this context it affirms that it is important that the design created is consistent with the campus-wide site masterplan for the joint campus with St James’s Hospital and with the Dublin City Council Local Area plan, and that it can constitute a landmark feature that can be welcomed by the community as a contribution to urban regeneration.

The design team is now working on detailed design development, with the aim of submitting a planning application in June 2015. Subject to planning, work will commence at the main site at St. James's, and at satellite centre sites at Connolly and Tallaght, in January 2016. It is intended that a maternity facility will be developed in due course on the St James’s campus, achieving tri-location of adult, paediatric and maternity services on one campus.