Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

248. To ask the Minister for Health to set out the funding that is being allocated for the completion of the new cancer departments at Cork University Hospital and University Hospital Galway as per the €3 billion allocation in the capital investment plan 2016-21; the funding that is being provided for the further investment in existing facilities at Beaumont Hospital; the timeframe for the funding for each of these; the details of what is covered in these plans within the 2016-21 timeframe; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11967/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The National Plan for Radiation Oncology which will deliver facilities at Cork University Hospital (CUH) and University Hospital Galway (UHG) is one of the six priority projects for which funding has been indented over the multi-annual period 2016-2021. For reasons of commercial sensitivity and in advance of contracts being awarded it is not appropriate to state the funding indented for these projects.

Design teams have been appointed and planning permission has be awarded at the two locations. The Cork project will deliver four replacement and one additional linear accelerators (linacs). The Galway project will deliver three replacement and one additional linear accelerators together with additional bunkers on both sites to cater for future expansion. The radiation oncology facility, on each campus, is a complex build as in both locations the new radiation oncology facilities will be built on the footprints of the old acute mental health departments.

The new acute mental health department at CUH has been completed and the health care services transferred. Currently it is projected that construction of the CUH facility could be completed by mid 2018 following which the clinical commissioning of the linacs would begin. On this basis this commissioning could be completed by mid 2019.

It is projected that the new acute mental health facility at UHG will be completed and commissioned by mid/late 2017. Following this construction of the radiation oncology facility can begin. It is projected that it will be completed by mid / late 2019. On this basis the indicative date for completion of the clinical commissioning of the linacs is mid/late 2020.

Phase 1 of the NPRO in Dublin was completed at the end of 2011 with the provision of new facilities at St James’s and Beaumont Hospitals. Additional capacity in Dublin is required under Phase 2 of the NPRO. Some funding will be indented to progress the development and planing for additional radiation oncology facilities at Beamount Hospital over the period.